Tuesday, November 8, 2011

This is the Remix #4 - Chicken Stock


This is… the last remix.  With the holidays coming up, I thought that doing a chicken stock blog post would be well worth it.  It seems that during the holidays, people buy the most chicken stock than other times of the year.  You use it to make dressing (or stuffing as some call it), different rice dishes, or as a basting liquid for your turkey.  It has so many uses, and at $2.50 for a 32 ounce tetrapack (tetrapack is a word I first heard in the Philippines, and it essentially means a juicebox), it may be worth it to you to make stock when you have a roasted chicken.  Once again… a $5.00 pre-roasted chicken will make you at least 96 ounces of stock.  Stock also freezes really well and can be defrosted quickly for when you want to make soup or add it to your favorite recipe.  So how do we do this?  Lehggo!

Once you have eaten everything you wanted off of your preroasted chicken, pick off the leftover meat off the chicken until you get to bare bones.  Save the meat to make soup, chicken-salad sandwiches, or another remix meal (See Remix Meal #1).

Ingredients:

1 chicken carcass (I use the leftover bones from the pre-roasted chicken we had been eating off of for the week)
4 carrots, roughly chopped (notice, I didn’t even bother to peel them)
4 celery stalks, roughly chopped (greens and all)
2 peppers roughly chopped
1 onion, cut into quarters (once again, no need to peel)
1 clove of garlic (you can leave the papers on)
Water to cover (Usually about 10-12 cups).

Vegetables

Bones


Put all of your ingredients into your largest stock pot.  Put in enough water to cover your ingredients.  


Place on high heat and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, reduce to a simmer.  (You can also do this in your crockpot if you don’t feel comfortable with leaving your stove on for long periods of time)



 Now, depending on how intense you want your flavors to be in your stock, you can allow your stock to simmer all day (which will give you a more concentrated stock), or you can just simmer it for an hour. 

As you simmer your stock, you will notice a thin film of scum (or as another blogger called it, “chicken foam”) that will start to collect around the edges of the pot.  If you are worried about the clarity of your stock, go ahead and skim that off.  For me… I leave it in because (1) its tasty and (2) I’m lazy.

Once you’ve gotten your desired flavor profile, cut off the heat and allow it to cool.  Once you’ve cooled the stock, you want to strain out the veggies and the chicken bones.  I do this with a slotted spoon.  And if you aren’t clumsy, you can use a colander with another pot underneath to strain out your solids.  You can eat the veggies if you want, but I don’t because they no longer have any texture.  Essentially, they are mush.  So toss them out along with the bones, they’ve done their job.



There are several methods of storing your stock.  One method that I’ve learned is that you can freeze the stock into ice cube trays.  In using this method, you can then take your chicken stock cubes, remove them from the trays once frozen and place them in a gallon freezer bag.  For some, it may be easier to store the stock this way.  For me, I only have 2 ice trays… and quite honestly… I only want ice in them.  So what I do is save the large plastic containers that you get with your egg drop, wonton, hot and sour soups and freeze the stock in those containers.  Right now, I have about 3 of those containers in my freezer, waiting for use!



You may also be wondering… “Vince, why didn’t you add any salt or pepper to your stock?”  Trust me, there’s a method to my madness.  I leave my stocks salt and pepper free because I use the stocks as an ingredient for other dishes.  If I add salt and pepper to the stock, I run the risk of over-seasoning the foods I plan on making later.

Chicken stock is one of the best ways to use all of your chicken parts and get rid of your leftover veggies.  Since lately I’ve been doing a lot of food shopping at warehouse stores, I am always afraid that the veggies and things are going to go bad before I can get around to using them.  So before that happens, make stock.  You don’t have to be limited by the vegetables I’ve listed for you.  You aren’t limited by just chicken bones.  If you use have short-ribs or marrow bones, use those to make a beef stock.  If you have a bunch of scallions that are about to go on you, throw them in the pot!  If you have fresh herbs that are starting to get dry and brown on you, throw them in the pot!  If you find yourself with a hambone after a holiday meal, make stock out of that!  Stocks are so versatile, its worth the time and effort.

Onwards and upwards,

Vince

1 comment:

  1. Hi! I'm a new follower :) How long do the frozen chicken stock last in the freezer? Do they ever spoil?
    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete