Stocked

I hate running out of chicken stock. To me it seems like one of the most important ingredients to have on hand at all times in order to make a quick meal delicious. Since it can be used so universally in savory dishes, why not make your own high-quality stock and improve all the dishes you cook with it? Why not indeed. I've made stock and it was really easy.



What you'll need:
4-5 pounds of chicken necks and backls/other various chicken scraps (bones are good!)
About 2 gallons of water
1-2 white onions (1 large or 2 medium), peeled
2 cloves
2 tbsp. salt
10 peppercorns
1 bay leaf

4 carrots, quartered
All leaves from a heart of celery
2 ribs of celery, cut in half
6 green onions

Rationale:
You want to save your beautiful meaty chicken breasts and such for cooking main courses, not for flavoring stock. The bones have just as much (if not more) flavor in them and are much cheaper. That way, you're also not wasting so much easily-usable flesh of the bird. As for the celery leaves, they normally aren't the choice part for eating straight. They are, however, still full of flavor and can work beautifully in a stock. So don't waste them.

Get started by placing your chicken in the stock pot and filling it with water.

 Next, stab your onion with a knife or skewer (or anything that will put a small hole through it) and then poke the cloves into the onion at any place other than where you just stabbed. Toss in the onion and the rest of the first group of ingredients and bring the pot to a boil over medium heat. This will take a long time (probably more than an hour), so go do something else for a while unless you're just that fallow.
 If you come back and you're still waiting for your pot to boil, wash and prep your vegetables by peeling and quartering the carrots and chopping the celery into pieces about 2 inches long. Seriously, this is as much work as you will do making this stock.*

 Alright, so your stock is boiling.

Skim off the white foam you see. It's called scum and makes your stock cloudy and ugly if you don't remove it. Use a fine mesh strainer and skim the surface until it is free of scum. Simmer it for another hour, skimming the surface for scum every 15 minutes or so. I didn't have to remove much more because I was very thorough the first time I skimmed it, meaning it's a good idea to be thorough.

Then you can add your vegetables that you worked so hard on to prepare. I decided to add mine in a pretty fashion. You don't have to, just make sure they are submerged completely.

 Cover it up and simmer for about 3 more hours and give it a taste. If it's too watery for you, continue to simmer it uncovered, checking the taste every 15 minutes or so.

Once the desired flavor is achieved, turn it off and strain the vegetables through a fine mesh strainer into another large pot and discard them.

*Side note: If desired, you can then drain the chicken off in a separate strainer and pick whatever meat you can off the bones. It will be pretty flavorless, so if you decide to do this you'll have to season it more strongly than usual with whatever you use it for (maybe tacos, chicken salad, pulled chicken, etc.). Be careful for small bones in the neck pieces. If you don't want to go through this trouble (especially since your using the chicken scraps), discard the chicken meat and strain the rest of the broth.

In order to avoid temperature shock in your fridge (the stock pot can severely offset the temperature of your fridge, spoiling other food), place the pot of hot broth in your sink and surround it with ice water. The goal is to get the stock to about 40 degrees. Once it has cooled, put the stock in the fridge overnight. Skim the layer of fat off the next day, pour into containers and store most of the stock in the freezer. This will really only keep in your fridge for about 4 days, so only take out what you know you'll need.


That's all there is to it. You now have delicious stock. Go make risotto or something.

I'd like to thank my mom for sharing with me what she knew about how to make stock, as well as for letting me messy up the kitchen.

Thanks for reading!