Chicken Stocks Smell Good

The remnants of chicken and an interesting book.

In the last posting here we made a chicken, brined it, roasted it, consumed it, fed it to ours rats or other various pets and then we got yelled at by the wife or husband for leaving carrot shavings in the sink overnight and cooking to much fatty food.  There were also bones, anywhere from 2-3 whole pounds of bones depending on the size of the bird and what I didn't feed to my pet rats I saved to make one of the most basic components of cooking, stock.  Good stock beats the pants off of anything that you can buy at the store.  Not only does it lend a nice aroma to your house during the 4-5 hour process of making it, but it is the foundation of so many dishes from risotto to sauces to soups. Today I'm going to run you through a fairly basic stock with a little help from Michael Ruhlman's Ratio.

As you can see by the title of the book we are going to use a ratio here to make our stock, 3-2.  Simply, it is 3 parts water to 2 parts bone.  I had 2 pounds of chicken bones left, so I used 3 pounds of water (6 cups) to produce it.   The rest of the ingredients were as follows:

Almost done, 1 more hour.

1/2 pound onion (I used 1/4 pd. leeks & 1/4 pd. onions)
1/4 pound celery
1/4 pound carrot
4 cloves of garlic
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. of black peppercorns (crushed of course, you can also roast them a bit first)
3 sprigs or so of thyme
small bundle of parsley

Once you have your chicken bones and COLD water in the pot bring you temperature up to just below a simmer (180 F) then drop the temp to low, skim the congealed junk (proteins and foam) off the top, and let that baby sit for 4 hours or so.   During the last hour of cooking add the remaining ingredients listed above to finish the stock. Additions will cool the stock so, bring back to a simmer then reduce the heat to low again and give it another 45-60 minutes to steep.

Not just for hair or hippies.

Finally, remove the large pieces of bone and discard, run the stock through a fine mesh strainer or chinoise then repeat the process again through some cheese cloth. For some bizarre reason I can not find cheesecloth in Lincoln, NE so, I just use a bandanna that I stole from my wife, she wasn't happy but it works just fine and I can simply wash it.  Throw the freshly strained stock in the fridge to cool and store.  It will keep for 7 days in the fridge and a month or so in the freezer.  Be careful not to keep around onions or other things that will impart odors on the stock because it will pick them up.

There ya have it, either store in a ziplock bag or nice sealable tupperware and you have yourself roughly 4 cups of chicken stock to use on whatever your heart desires.  My wife used it immediately after I made it for some mad wive's breakfast risotto.  Till next time.

I was going to use you for leek soup, but...