Chicken stock?

compmad1

How can I make a simple chicken stock for use in a soup? When I've cooked a chicken the juice that is left over appears to be mainly gelatine. Is this what people use? Thanks.

Enterprise_1701C

I remember my mum taking the whole carcas (broken up) and boiling it in a pan of water - for better information I would suggest that you go to the "Old Style" board. I am ashamed to admit I do not do this but it does create good stock.

~~Diane~~

I pop the carcass in a pan off water with a carrot, onion, salt & pepper and boil for a couple of hours, strain into a large bowl and pick off all the chicken. Add the liquid and meat to the pan along with all the different veggies, herbs, you want to use. Result a nice tasty soup

Lugh_Chronain

Ingredients

bones from a cooked chicken carcass including skin
1 carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
1 onion, peeled and quartered
1 stalk celery, roughly chopped
6 black peppercorns
1 dried bay leaf
3 fresh parsley stalks
1 sprig fresh thyme

Method

1. Put all the ingredients into a large pan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and skim off any scum that has formed. Cover and simmer very gently for 2-3 hours.
2. Strain into a large bowl and allow to cool. Chill overnight.
3. Skim off any fat that has formed on the surface. Use within 3 days or freeze.
4. To freeze, reduce the stock by half by boiling vigorously. Cool. Pour into ice-cube trays and freeze. When frozen put the cubes into a bag, label it, and when you want to use one, just put in a jug and add boiling water to dissolve the cube.

Clowance

Suggest a pressure cooker if you have one. Bring to full pressure, turn ring down to simmer and cook for 20-25 minutes. Works a treat. And I always think if it is jelly like its good strong stock. I personally just cover the bones with cold water and add flavour in the soup I make with it, but if you had dodgy veg (limp celery, carrots etc) you could put those in.
Nigella has recipe somewhere and says you can either freeze the carcass for later use or freeze the stock. HTH

Lugh_Chronain

You could leave out the herbs in the recipe I've posted if you don't used these frequently. Except for the bay leaf of course.

Although you could dry these buy hanging them upside down.

MrsBartolozzi

Home made chicken stock is jelly-like, don't worry (I remember being horrified the first time I made it!).

Fire_Fox

I make chicken stock by breaking up the carcass, covering in water and simmering (not boiling) covered for up to six hours. Strain it, reduce it down by half, leave to set to jelly in the fridge and remove the fat from the top. I don't add any vegetables, salt or herbs to my chicken stock as I like the option of adding flavours when cooking with the stock.

compmad1

Thanks everyone. It seems to me that you have to use a lot of gas or electricity to simmer a carcass for hours, which could make the soup quite expensive. I don't have a pressure cooker, which would obviously take a lot less time. Are they hard to use? I've got a slow cooker. Has anyone used one of these for soup? Thanks.

Lugh_Chronain

Not necessarily, if you make a large amount it will probably cost you a lot less then shop bought soup and even if you don't the cost to make this will be nominal compared to shop bought soup. I don’t think that this would make a hole in your savings with regards to gas.

The only thing is how would you store a large amount of soup?? You could also get a large stockpot instead of a pressure cooker though a pressure cooker might be better.

I've never used a slow cooker or a pressure cooker so I can't comment on those I'm afraid.

Fire_Fox

compmad1 wrote: »

Thanks everyone. It seems to me that you have to use a lot of gas or electricity to simmer a carcass for hours, which could make the soup quite expensive. I don't have a pressure cooker, which would obviously take a lot less time. Are they hard to use? I've got a slow cooker. Has anyone used one of these for soup? Thanks.

If you put a lid on the pan you won't use that much energy; it's more time efficient and moneysaving to freeze a carcass until you have two and make a big pan of stock. Large pan plus low heat means you won't waste much power as the heat will go straight into the base of the pan.

You will waste more heat by reducing the stock uncovered, but this step isn't essential if you have the freezer space to store the larger volume of liquid. I make stock and soups regularly and our entire energy bill (hot water, heating the lot) is £34 a month! You can use a slow cooker for stock but you will need a much longer cooking time - run a search on the Old Style board for more guidance.