On the Importance of Chicken Stock

As far as I'm concerned, chicken stock is the single most important food ingredient I have in my kitchen.  I use it to dress up soups, stews, sauces, and casseroles.  I add it to almost everything, especially if I've got a little bit of meat and I want to turn it into "a little bit of meat and a lot of sauce that everyone will like and we can serve over rice."

Buying chicken stock pre-made at the store can get expensive.  And,since I usually can't buy it wherever I am anyway, I've learned to make it:  it's cheap and it's healthy.

Free range or organic chickens are best, because their diet actually gives the stock some flavor!  This means, if you're outside the U.S., you can pretty much buy any chicken.  If you're in the U.S., buy the free range or organic; the extra cost is worth it (especially since you can often get 3 meals and 2-3 quarts of stock from one chicken.)

Instructions for making stock:

Bake the chicken.

Eat the chicken.

Pick off the extra meat to use in another recipe.

Put the entire remaining carcass (skin, bones, cartilage & all) in a pot with a lot of water and simmer the dickens out of it.  I usually simmer it all day.  Sometimes for two days. If you've got a boring American grocery store chicken, your stock won't have much flavor, so chop up some onion, carrot & celery & add it to the pot with the carcass as well.

Make sure there's always enough water in the pot.  (I've seen what happens when there's not:  Smoke alarms go off, carbon layers form, greasy smoke coats the kitchen walls and cabinets and it takes hours to clean it off so you can pass the moving out inspection......)  When it's simmered a while, taste & dilute to the strength you want.

Discard the carcass & vegetables (I pour everything through a colander set over a bowl).

This can be used right away for soup, poured into ice cube trays & frozen, or (my favorite because it's quick) put into quart-sized Ziplocs & frozen.

And you've gotten at least 3 eals out of that one chicken!  Now that's stretching a buck!

P.S.  Your Thanksgiving turkey carcass will make incredible stock as well!!