I know it’s time to make stock when the ice cream won’t fit in the freezer because there are too many bags of chicken bones in the way.  I took advantage of the unseasonably cool weather to make a huge pot of chicken stock.   You might be wondering why any sane person would spend 2 days making stock when it is so readily available in a box or can.  Taste, ingredient control, and, the fleeting moment of feeling like a thrifty pioneer woman (with indoor plumbing).

Some people find this intimidating.  It’s not, I promise you.  The toughest parts are finding a ginormous stock pot (you could use a canning pot) and enough freezer containers with lids to hold your bounty.  Do you have a pasta insert that you never use?  Now is a great time to use it!

If you aren’t the type to fill your freezer with chicken parts (I freeze backbones, errant pieces, and whole chickens when they are cheep (sorry)).  Just go and get yourself 5 pounds of bone-in chicken (remove the skin and big pieces of fat).  A package of wings is not the best option because they are very fatty. 

There are as many recipes for chicken stock as there are cooks.  The basics are water, chicken, carrot, celery, onion, and a bay leaf or two. 

My process:

Get the stock pot out of the back of the pantry.  The pasta insert is stored inside it because that’s the only time I ever use it.

Put 1-2 stalks of celery, an onion, and a few carrots in the insert.  Peeling and chopping not necessary.

Add a bay leaf.

Put all the chicken – frozen or not! in the insert.

Fill with water until everything is covered by an inch or so.

Did I say to add salt?  Noooo, I did not.  If I salt it now, by the time it has reduced it will taste like….salt.

Cook 4-6 hours (it doesn’t really matter if it’s longer) occasionally skimming off the crud, and then remove the insert and all the contents.  Once I did not use the insert.  Using a colander seemed like a brilliant idea until I realized that the only pot I had that was big enough to hold boiling stock was…holding boiling stock. 

Continue simmering the stock all day.  Seriously.  I just let it simmer away.  The chicken and vegetables get spread on a cookie sheet until cool enough to handle, then I pick out the chicken and make chicken salad.   In the summer, I dump the bones and veggies in a plastic shopping bag and freeze it until garbage day (what, you don’t have a spot in your freezer reserved for things that would smell too bad if chucked in the trash?).

When the stock has cooked down to half of what it was, I fill the sink with ice water and put in the pot so it will cool.  If it is cold outside, the pot sits out there.

Once it’s cool, it’s time to make room in the ‘f'ridge, and let it cool overnight.  In the morning, the fat will have hardened into a disc that is easy to scoop out and pitch (apologies to Jewish grandmothers everywhere, but this stuff is bad for you!). 

It could be done here, but I like to give it one more round of reduction, so back on the stove until it’s reduced by half.  Chill in the sink again (if the ice maker cranked out more ice) or just pour into containers.  Refrigerate some and freeze the rest. 

Seems like a lot of work, I know, but the price of a good chicken stock is rising (they make you pay more when they take out the salt, because they they have to flavor it with real stuff), and it’s made out of stuff that we normally throw away.

---***---

On stock day my son expects his favorite pot pie.  I make a roux and add broth until it makes a nice gravy, add frozen mixed vegetables, some of the chicken, salt/pepper/thyme/whatever, and pour it into a large, shallow casserole dish.  Then I roll out some puff pastry and put it over the top, cut some vents, brush it with an egg, and bake it at 400 for 20 minutes.