I have moved up to 4th place!
There are lots of recipes for chicken stock available on the internet. You might wonder why I would bother including ‘another’ on my blog.
Simple.
I love to make it. Sort of like the essence of cooking.
It seems like such an extravagant thing to do with a chicken. Now, you can use the bones from a roasted chicken that you have already eaten the meat from. Or the raw backs and wing tips from a bunch of chickens, that you have saved and frozen over time. But nothing is going to give you the depth of flavour that a whole fresh chicken, slowly simmered over several hours, with a gorgeous mirepoix of carrots, leeks, celery, flat leaf parsley and some seasoning will provide.
For ease of extraction, I tie my vegetables together with kitchen twine. When the stock has finished cooking, I simply lift the vegetables out with the twine loop. If you do not have any leek, you can easily substitute a yellow onion. I wash my veggies but it is not necessary to peel them. I also use the top green end of the leek and save the lovely white part to eat. The mirepoix is discarded after cooking.
It is critical to use the best quality sea salt that you can. Nothing kills a beautiful stock like an insipid salt! I will tell you that some cooks do not add salt to their stock preferring to salt the dish they are adding it to. You decide…
Chicken Stock
makes 8 cups
1 celery stalk, washed and cut in half
2 medium carrots, scrubbed
top green part of 1 leek, washed thoroughly
3 sprigs flat Italian parsley
2 dried bay leaves
1 tablespoon sea salt
6 peppercorns
1 – 5 lb chicken, well rinsed – organs removed they will make your stock cloudy
Place chicken in the bottom of a large stock pot.
Tie carrots, leek, celery, parsley and bay leaves together with kitchen twine leaving a nice long loop to use as a handle – place in the pot
16 cups cold water or enough to just cover.
Add sea salt and peppercorns.
Bring chicken, mirepoix and water to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer uncovered for 3 hours. Skim off any foam that rises to the surface.
Add water if needed to keep things covered.
Remove from heat and strain through a sieve into a heatproof storage container.
Taste the chicken meat and see if you like it. I use mine for pulled chicken sandwiches – deadly!
Let cool, uncovered, then refrigerate.
Remove the fat that forms on the top before using.
Enjoy!
It is exciting to have been nominated by several readers for Best Food Blogger of 2011 on FriendsEat. I am including the badge to take you directly to their page so you can cast your vote.
You can only vote once and polls close on September 23 at 5:00pm EST.
Click the badge at the top of this screen to start voting!!
I am blown away to be included in the same list with such wonderful and inspirational food bloggers.
Thanks for reading.
