Chicken Stock Revisited
Three months ago, shortly after I began blogging, I wrote about how to make chicken stock. Last night I made a batch of stock and, looking back at my November post, I think it's too wordy and the narrative format isn't very user friendly. In the past few weeks, I've had discussions with several people about homemade chicken stock and have realized that many, many people (just about everyone I know) think making it is too much work. So my goal today is to make abundantly clear how easy it is to make chicken stock—in about an hour—and to put my stock recipe into a more conventional user friendly format. As I mentioned in my post a few months back, there's really no comparison between homemade and store bought. So give it a try.
The first step is to save your uncooked chicken scraps. Buy whole chickens when you want to eat chicken (it's cheaper than buying chicken parts and you get free homemade stock out of the deal!), use the breasts and legs/thighs as you wish, cut the uncooked backs and wings into 1 inch pieces and throw them in a freezer bag in the freezer until you've accumulated the bones from 4 chickens, about 4 pounds. Thaw the bones before making the recipe below. If using less bones, scale the recipe down a bit.
Here's what I used to make about 3 quarts of stock:
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil (or chicken fat)
- 1 large onion, roughly chopped
- 4 lbs. uncooked (thawed) chicken bones
- 4 Bay leaves
- 3 quarts boiling water
- Heat oil (or chicken fat) in a large dutch oven or stock pot over medium-high heat.
- Sauté onion until translucent, about 5 minutes, then remove the onion to a large bowl.
- Place half of the chicken bones in the pot and cook until beginning to brown and no longer pink, about 5 minutes, then remove to bowl with onion.
- Place remaining chicken bones in the pot and cook until beginning to brown and no longer pink, about 6 or 7 minutes (some of the heat was sucked out of your pot by the first batch of bones).
- Empty the contents of the bowl containing the onion and bones back into the pot, add the bay leaves, cover, reduce the heat to low and cook for 20 minutes. (This stage releases all of the chicken-goodness from the bones.)
- Place your 3 quarts of water in a separate pot over high heat to boil.
- After 20 minutes of cooking the bones (step 5, above), add the boiling water to the pot with the bones and continue cooking over low heat for 20 minutes longer.
- Strain stock through a large colander (optional—line the colander with cheesecloth if you want to remove fine particulates to produce a cleaner stock) into a large bowl to remove the chicken parts, onion and bay leaves. The photo above was taken after this step.
- Refrigerate the stock for several hours.
- During refrigeration, the fat will rise to the top, forming a distinct layer. After refrigeration, remove the layer fat. I save and use the chicken fat for making stock in the future (see first ingredient in list above) and for other recipes. Most stock-makers probably throw it away. Do whatever suits you!
- You're done! Whatever stock you won't be using within 48 hrs. should be frozen. I freeze mine in pint-sized ziploc freezer bags, measuring 2 cups per bag, and marking the bag with the date and contents using a Sharpie.
Those paying close attention may notice that I've omitted an ingredient from my November recipe—salt. I did so in part to keep this as simple as possible, but also because salt is easily added later, when you're actually using the stock. Why not wait and add it later if it's actually needed in the preparation? Many of my uses for chicken stock involve reducing the liquid (e.g., risotto), which concentrates the salt. I used to salt my stock, but am now of the view that I'd rather add it later than risk an overly-salty dish.
Also, you might be wondering, why does Food Rockz Man's stock preparation take only an hour when so many stock recipes take hours and hours of simmering? Answer: my recipe involves sweating the bones without liquid for 20 minutes (step 5, above), whereas most recipes call for the addition of water from the start. The sweating pulls the marrow out of the bones in a fraction of the time it takes to simmer the marrow out. Also, the fact that I call for the addition of boiling water, rather than the cold water added in most stock recipes, further reduces the cooking time of my recipe. You might also be wondering why my recipe has so few ingredients as compared to others? My goal in this recipe is a balance between simplicity and sophistication. I've made stocks with far more ingredients . . . the standard aromatics . . . carrots, celery, etc. . . . and I simply don't think these additional ingredients give you a very good return on your time/money in a chicken stock. My recipe is lean and mean!
You may not believe me that a world-class chicken stock can be made in an hour with so few ingredients, but the proof is in the stock. Try it! What do you have to lose? Just some ol' chicken bones and an hour of your time. This stuff is practically free!
thanks Food Rockz Man.
i love the fact this is low sodium, too.
cannot wait to try it.
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You know, not having made stock is one of my secret shames. I always have the best intentions, but then the bones somehow end up in the trash instead of the freezer, and the rest is history.
Also, I hear you on going back and reading old entries. I feel I only really found my voice about three months ago...the first few months were a rambley mess.
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You just had to go there with the secret shame business, didn't ya. Well . . . you shared . . . so I guess I will to. I'm about to destroy whatever shred of credibility I might have had in the food blogosphere. My secret shame is that I love McDonald's cheeseburgers with a passion . . . I love, love, love them. I know they're not cheese. And I know they're not meat. And I know I'm all like blah blah blah sustainable food blah blah farmers market blah blah. My passionate love for McDonald's cheeseburgers conflicts with pretty much everything I stand for. Oh well . . . what can I say? I know what I can say . . . McDonald's fries are pretty damn good too! I should let myself eat McDonald's more often. Second thought, maybe not.
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Since we're sharing... I have the same awful secret! Can we blame our folks? i gave in tothe demons within the past 2 weeks
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I think we probably can blame our folks! But I have to take at least a bit of responsibility for my continuing indulgence in this shameful secret!
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McD's cheeseburgers? Are you kidding me? Now the Egg McMuffin is a work of genius, but for cheeseburgers you gotta go to Wendy's!
And no blaming the rents -- your parents never fed you those burgers.
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It'll take me a while to reach 4 pounds of chicken carcass
I love McDonald's cheeseburgers too-- and hey, that is real beef!! At least that's what their placemats say.
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Hmmmmm . . . tell me more about this fear of leftover bones. As long as they're uncooked in the first place and they're stored properly (i.e., frozen), I don't think you have anything to fear. But fears aside, why not just make a small batch of stock with the fresh chicken carcass. You could get a quart of stock out of the bones from one fresh raw chicken. Re the burgers . . . I know it's technically real beef, but I've read enough to be wary of what might qualify as real beef here in the states. My understanding is that outside of the U.S., McDonald's uses a lot more grass fed beef because that's what's available on the market, but here in the states McDonald's uses corn-fed, feedlot-raised, hormone- and antibiotic-pumped animal product that . . . at the end of the day . . . is a hell of a lot different than the "beef" my grandparents were eating. You're quite possible getting much better burgers in Manila.
BTW . . . I read your blog regularly and it rockz!
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sooooooooo...I feel like an idiot asking this but do you leave the skin on? What do you do with the good chicken meat that's left over from the cooking?
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Please don't feel like an idiot for asking anything. Questions are the keys to knowledge! For my chicken stock, I use only left over bones and random chicken parts . . . not whole chickens with usable meat. For this reason, the stock is nearly free, made primarily from stuff that would otherwise be thrown away. I buy a chicken, use the meat and throw the bones in the freezer until I have enough bones to make stock.
So, if you're starting with whole chickens, I recommend you check out my post regarding how to take apart a chicken. Take apart your chicken and use the breast, leg and thigh meat for whatever sorts of chicken dishes you love . . . then save the remaining parts (the back and wings) for making stock. You can even go one step further and remove the breast, leg and thigh meat from the bones and throw those bones into the stock pile.
Does this help?
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