Not Just a Man's World

By accident, chicken soup has become something we eat with frightening regularity.  It’s easy to make and hugely nutritious.  The best bit though is that it’s also great for leftovers.  You just use whatever happens to be in the house and get a different soup every time.

It’s not necessarily quick to make (if you’re making soup and starting with a chicken), but with sensible planning you can do the stock stage whenever you happen to have a chicken, since that’s the time-consuming bit, freeze your stock and then soup itself takes about 45 minutes to whip up whenever you want it.

Over the next two recipe posts I’m going to explain how to make stock and then how to use your stock to make a delicious chicken soup.

Chicken stock

So many people are frightened of making stock but it’s really not difficult.  The best bit is that you can apply this same method to any pile of bones you happen to have lying about the place.  You’ll find you become a hoarder of leftover bones.  Over Christmas I came home from my parents and Chris’s parents with a bag of bones each time and then converted these into stock.  The time I boiled up a beef bone with a pork bone we ended up with the most delicious and rich stock imaginable!

If you don’t have a carcass, I’m told that you can boil the bones with the meat still on them, effectively cooking the meat at the same time.  I’ve not had a chance to try this because I tend to be making this with leftovers.  Instead I just try to retain a small portion of the meat from whatever I was having beforehand to provide me with meat if I’m intending to make soup with the stock, rather than freeze the stock for later use.

So here’s chicken (or any other meat) stock in a few simple steps.

1. Place your carcass, or bits of chicken on the bone, into a large pan that has a lid.
2. Cover with water until the water comes about an inch above the bones.
3. If you’re feeling in an expansive mood, add an onion (cut in half), a carrot or two (roughly chopped) and a bit of fresh parsley.  If, like I usually do, you’re making poor-man’s stock then you don’t need these.  After all, you’ll most likely be adding vegetables, herbs and other flavours to whatever you’re making with the stock later on.
4. Cover the pan with the lid, bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer.
5. Leave for a few hours (I usually reckon 3 hours – 2 hours as a minimum).  It’s ready when the water has turned a creamy colour and any bones you fish out are clean (or meat is falling off the bones leaving them spotless if you started with fresh pieces of chicken on the bone).  I generally stop it when even the pieces of gristle are coming out squeaky-clean.
6. Using a colander or large sieve pour off the stock into a large bowl.
7. Take your time picking over the pile of bones and gristle, retrieving any remaining scraps of meat you can find (but careful to avoid the really tiny bones and pieces of gristle that you will previously never have known existed – this is a perfect way to learn chicken anatomy).  These bits of chicken can be eaten or saved to go into the soup.

Leftover gristle and bone

That’s it!  How simple was that?  Unless I’m making soup straight away, I bottle this up in some old jars and store it in the fridge.  If I’m not going to use it within the week then I wait until it is cool and pour it into some old yoghurt pots.  These go into the freezer to make large blocks of frozen stock which will keep for ages and be ready to use.  Beware though – it expands considerably when frozen!

A good chicken stock, once cooled, should gain a jelly-like consistency and may also have a layer of fat on the top. 

Many people recommend that you skim the fat off and discard it but I’m a fan of the fats so I’ve never done this.  As long as there isn’t too much (beef stock sometimes needs a bit of the fet removed) the fat adds depth to your final product (whatever it is you may do with the stock).

If your stock hasn’t gained a jelly-like consistency then your stock is still useable but be warned that it won’t be as rich in flavours.  Watery stock occurs when too much water was used so this suggests that you need a lower water to bones ratio the next time.

Next week, I’ll move onto making the soup!

Related posts:

1. Paleo recipes: stock with a pressure cooker
2. Paleo recipes: chicken soup
3. Paleo recipes: chicken and broccoli soup
4. Paleo recipes: poule au pot (pot-cooked chicken)