Cooking

[mamadeb]

Today, I made chicken stock. Not chicken soup, nor less chicken broth. I carefully measured chicken bones.

I blanched them in my smaller stock pot and then, rinsed clean, I put them in my larger one with 1.5 pounds of mirepoix (2 parts onions, one part each carrots and celery, in large dice) and a bouquet garni of parsley stems (I froze a leftover bunch in water, and added the lot), bay leaves and peppercorns, plus 1.5 gallons of cold water.

I brought this to a boil and down to a very slow simmer and let it sit for hours, and then poured it into deli containers (purchased, not leftover.) I think I was fairly ingenious about this: I took a quart deli container, and put it in the smaller stock pot. I put the cheesecloth lined strainer over the deli container, and used a saucepan as a ladle to pour the stock through the strainer into the container - any overflow neatly caught by the stockpot, to be returned to the big pot. I cooled these off in a cooler filled with ice and water.

I now have about 2 gallons of stock, some in quart containers and some in pint containers, and all golden and beautiful, and sitting in my freezer.

(I also have a pot of meat sauce - had to make dinner, too.)

I also have two pot roasts. I'm inching towards yomtov. Got pretty much all my guests in line now.

Comments

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

How many lbs bones? And how did you get them -- did you buy them as bones, or did you cut the meat off them special for this project, or did you accumulate them gradually in the freezer?

I tend to make either stocky broth or brothy stock, because I buy chicken leg quarters when they're really cheap, freeze them, and add bones (gradually accumulated). My stock is not as pretty & golden as yours sounds, but it's verra tasty.

I also add garlic cloves, allspice, and thyme.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

According to the chef, broth is a waste of money because you do not get as much flavor from meat and, well, you then can't use the meat. *Shrug*.

What I did this time was a combination of the three. Over the past few weeks, instead of buying cut-up chicken, I've been getting whole chickens. I use the legs for Shabbos dinner - one of the problems for Shabbos is that food is often kept warm for over an hour - sometimes longer - and legs survive that sort of treatment much better than breasts. I use the breasts for a weekday meal, when we do eat food as soon as it's cooked. The carcass and flatwings were saved in a separate freezer bag.

I did this both to get the two different meals and to get the carcasses for stock. This gave me a little over four lbs of bones (I love my new scale!). I needed at least five lbs and I wanted 7.5, so I bought bones - the local kosher supermarket sells chicken bones fairly cheaply. Two packages gave me about the right amount.

I didn't put in the herbs and spices you mentioned because this is to be an ingredient as well as a soup, and I wanted it versatile - I might not want those flavors in the final dish.

Come yom tov, I'm going to take about a gallon or so and simmer it with turnips, parsnips, dill and more carrots and chicken so it tastes like the soup I know. The rest will be used to enrich turkey dressing and a chicken casserole, and to be used at other times.

[rosehiptea.livejournal.com]

I used to love making chicken stock, though I usually cheated and used turkey bones which were cheaper.

I used to strain it, too... wow, brings back memories.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

I love turkey bones in chicken stock. I think they add a lot of flavor. Also, of course, it should be a crime to not make soup of leftover turkey bones.

[malkaesther.livejournal.com]

Sounds yummy. And what a great idea with the cheesecloth, smaller pot, and container I may have to try that.