Chicken Stock
This recipe is adapted from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home book. If you haven't read it, you need to buy it immediately. I still use it to this day. There are mountains of little tips and tricks scattered throughout the book which make it extremely educational. He's been a huge inspiration for me so please support him.
This is something that is often overlooked but really provides an incredible amount of flavor as well as some great gelatinous texture which helps thicken your sauces (this is from the chicken feet). Nothing really beats homemade stock and it's very cheap and easy to make. You can start off by buying whole chickens and breaking them down yourself (or have the butcher do it, but be sure to tell them that you want all of the carcass and bones). You can freeze the uncooked bones and carcasses for later use. Using the carcasses of whole chickens means nothing from the animal goes to waste. If you don't have any bones accumulated, then ask your butcher for chicken backs and carcasses. They're usually very cheap but they might not display them in the meat case, so you may have to ask them for it. This recipe will give you roughly 4 quarts of stock. If you want to make more, I'd suggest doing them in batches rather than doubling all the ingredients. I find the 12-16 quart stock pots work very well for this amount of chicken, so if you're doubling the amount of bones and ingredients, you'll need a bigger pot as well.
I made this stock with the intention of freezing it for later use. You can buy cheap plastic ice cube trays that are perfect for this situation. That way you'll know exactly how much stock is being used and how much you have left. You can measure how much liquid each ice cube is when you fill up a slot in the tray. I find that the most common ones are 1 ounce cubes, which makes it very easy to add the exact amount of stock that you need without wasting any or coming up short.
The Ever Important Low Simmer
Ingredients
5lbs chicken backs, bones
1lbs chicken feet (optional but gives the sauce a nice gelatinous quality)
8oz (2 large) carrots roughly chopped
8oz yellow onion, roughly chopped
8oz leeks (one large or two medium), white and light green parts only. No dark leaves.
1 bay leaf
4 quarts filtered water
1 quart ice (to help fat congeal)
2qts ice for ice bath
Equipment
Large high sided stock pot (8qt is fine, 12-16qt is better)
Large container that can fit 4 quarts of liquid
Ice cube trays
Ladle
Small spouted measuring cup (helps when pouring liquid into the ice cube trays. Not mandatory but it helps)
Short and Sweet Instructions
Clean carcass of blood and organs
Cover with water in a large stockpot and bring to a simmer while skimming constantly
Discard water and cover bones with filtered water, bring to a simmer, add ice and skim fat
Add veg
Simmer for 40 mins
Strain and use
Cooking Instructions
Rinse the bones under cold running water. You can to get all of the blood and more importantly, organs off of the carcass. This will help prevent impurities from clouding the stock.
Place the bones in a large stock pot and cover with regular tap water.
Bring that up to a simmer while skimming the foamy impurities off the the top of the stock.
Once at a simmer, cook for 5 minutes.
Remove the bones from the pot and discard the water. Wipe out any remaining sludge on the inside of the pot so it's clean.
Put the the bones back into the pot
Pour in the 4 quarts of filtered water over the bones. It should be enough to cover them completely. If not, add water until they are covered.
Slowly bring the liquid up to up to a simmer (this could take 30-40 minutes+)
Skim the surface for any foamy impurities every few minutes. The more you do this the cleaner your stock will be.
Add the ice to the stock. This will cause the fats on the surface to congeal making it easier to skim with a spoon.
Skim the surface and remove as much fat as possible
Add the carrots, leeks and onions
Slowly bring back to a low simmer
Once at a low simmer, cook for 40 minutes
Kill the heat and remove the pan from the heat and let the stock rest for 20 minutes
Using a ladle and a fine mesh strainer (a chinois would be best, but any fine mesh strainer will do), ladle the stock into a container. If you have more than 4 quarts of stock, you can put it in a saucepan and reduce it until you get to 4 quarts.
Once you have the correct amount, you're going to cool the stock down
Prepare the ice bath
Put the strained stock into the ice bath
Stir occasionally and chill until you no longer feel any heat radiating from the surface and the stock feels cool to the touch.
Transfer the stock to the fridge. Use within 3 days. If you plan on using it after 3 days, then bring the stock to a boil before using it.
The best method is to freeze it for later use
Freezing the Stock
Once the stock is cooled, you can freeze it. I like to use ice cube trays because it allows you to use as much or as little as you want without having to thaw a large amount of stock. The added benefit is most ice cube trays usually make 1 ounce ice cubes. So this is very beneficial when you need specific amounts of stock or need to reference how much you used. if you used 16 cubes, then that means you used 16oz of stock. You'll notice most of my measurements for stock on this website goes by ounces for this reason.
Using the ladle, transfer the stock to your spouted measuring glass.
Pour the stock into the individual ice cube trays and freeze.
I like to let them freeze for at least 4-6 hours to make sure they're good and solid or else the liquid that hasn't frozen yet will freeze the cubes together and you'll end up with big clusters of cubes frozen together.
Once frozen, put them in a freezer safe bag or storage container.
I usually make enough to last 3 months or so.
Using the frozen stock
Take the desired amount of cubes and place them in a saucepan over medium high heat.
Heat until all the cubes have melted and the stock just begins to simmer.
You don't want to put cold stock into a hot pan as it will stop the cooking process or slow it down at the very least. It's not mandatory, but just something to keep in mind.