Lady Lunchalot

I’m making a pot of chicken stock to use up the veggies from the weekend’s cooking frenzy.

I love making chicken stock. If I am feeling sick I always make chicken soup, and it always makes me feel better. Though I am not sure whether it’s eating the soup or making the soup that makes me feel so good.

Home-made stocks are excellent to keep on hand. They freeze really easily and are a great low-fat way to add flavour to anything from stir-fries, to soups, to pasta sauces. They also ensure that no food goes to waste when you are cooking. In fact, if I am having a major cookup, I often keep the veg scraps aside to use in a stock later.

When I was at the Vic markets the other day I picked up a bag of chicken frames for $1. This is the basis of the soup. You just throw in some raw chicken bones into a big pot, and add any vegetables like carrots, onion, or whatever you have on hand. Today I used two carrots, a leek, a big onion, some leftover parsley (just chuck that in whole), some garlic and celery. remember you don’t have to use the “good bits’ of the veg. Just pop the whole lot in there - leaves, stalks and all.

Steer clear of using potatoes, or anything that might make your stock cloudy.

Cover the lot with water and bring it to the boil, then turn it down to a simmer and let it go for a few hours. You can top it up with more water along the way if you like. Give it a skim with a slotted spoon every now and then to remove the scum that gathers around the top.

When it’s done, strain it through a colander (or a sheet of muslin if you’re feeling really fancy) into another pot or bowl to remove the bones and vegetables.

Then let the pot cool and put it in the fridge overnight. The fat will float to the surface and congeal. Skim this off, and then put the stock in freezer containers or ice cube trays and freeze it until you need it.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 31st, 2006 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Recipes . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.