Taking Stock

Recipe Up Front, as always.

Yield: 2-9 Quarts (2-9 Liters) of chicken stock

Ingredients

1 Chicken carcass (raw or cooked

~2C Vegetable and Fruit Scraps - onion, celery, carrot, and apple are favorites

2 tbsp Vinegar

1/2 tbsp salt

1/2 tsp each of Pepper, Thyme, Parsley, and Garlic.

2 Bay Leaves

Water

Procedure

Stovetop

1) Place all ingredients in a pot (about 5 quart/5 liter should be large enough), and add water to approximately 1” (2.4 cm) above the top of the carcass.

2) Bring the contents to a boil over medium heat. If you want “clear” stock, use a spoon or ladle to scoop off any foam that forms while boiling until no more develops.

3) Reduce burner heat to low and simmer for an additional 1-8 hours. The longer the simmer, the more flavor and collagen will be drawn out and the more water will boil down, giving you a thicker, richer stock.

4) Ladel out the solids and set aside.

5) Strain your stock using a fine mesh collander. Store in jars in the refrigerator for 3-4 days, or freeze for up to 6 months.

Electric Pressure Cooker

1) Place all ingredients in your pressure cooker, add water until it covers the top of the bones by 1” (2.4 cm) and put the lid in place.

2) Cook using the “soup,” “broth,” or “stew” setting (varies by manufacturer) for 2-4 hours.

3) After depresurrizing, ladle out solids and set aside.

4) Strain your stock using a fine mesh collander. Store in jars in the refrigerator for 3-4 days, or freeze for up to 6 months.

optional additional step. put the bones back in the pot, add fresh veggies and herbs, and repeat the process up to 2 more times. Each subsequent batch will yield a thinner, clearer stock (or broth) than the previous.

“Why did no one tell me stock is just fancy garbage?”

It’s been more than a decade since I sent that incredulous text to a friend of mine along with a link to a video proving my point. I doubt the friend even remembers.

It was my first time cooking a Thanksgiving turkey, and I’d found a step by step guide on how to create what the maker insisted was the most succulent, tender, perfectly cooked bird that would ever grace your table (she was wrong, but we’ll get to that in November).

As the video went along, there was a common refrain the presenter kept reciting. “Normally we’d put these in the compost, but we’re going to set them aside and save them for our stock.” She peeled and sliced carrots, then set the peels and ends aside. She diced onions, setting the skins aside. She carved up celery and saved the white bits and the inside and the leafy parts. She even sliced a couple of apples to go in the cavity of the bird and added their cores to the pile.

Then, after the turkey was roasted and she’d carved and presented the meat, she encouraged viewers to click the link to her next video on how to make stock.

I clicked.

Into a massive stock pot, she threw all the turkey bones (some with scraps of meat and skin still on them), all the vegetables from the roasting pan, and all those scraps she’d set aside from the prep stages. Then she added some fresh herbs, a couple bay leaves, and a healthy slosh of apple cider vinegar, and turned on the burner. A day later - reduced to a few seconds through the magic of video editing - she’d used the carcass to make 3 batches had multiple gallons of rich, colorful, hearty stock cooling in jars, freezer safe bags, and ice cube trays on her counter.

I was blown away. I’d been cooking for years, and worked in several restaurants. I’d opened more containers of stock and broth than I could count, and thrown away probably twice as many bowls of carrot peels and chicken bones. Had I really been paying the solid waste people to take away my ingredients for stock, then turning around and paying for stock at the store?

I made turkey stock that year and it was incredible. Definitely more flavorful than the stuff I’d been buying. That one turkey met our stock needs for a solid 4 months, and we’ve been repeating the process ever since, just about every time we roast a chicken.

That experience also set both Jocie and me down a rabbit hole that I’ve never quite exited since of asking “What else am I simultaneously throwing away and buying?” and along the way we’ve learned about soaking stale bread to make the perfect pain perdue; whipping clabbered milk into tangy butter; saving citrus peels for extracts; and having an endless supply of Apple Cider Vinegar through the magic of forgetting about the juice in the back of the fridge. (Recipes to come in the future?)

Don’t get me wrong, I still buy stock sometimes. I’m writing this post having just had a plate of leftover pot roast made with a can of beef stock. Still, it continues to fascinate me how many delicious results can come from asking ourselves “is it really time to throw this away, or is there goodness yet to be had from it?”