Saturday, June 28, 2008

Rotisserie Chicken Stock


I am mighty pleased with myself, with just a very basic chicken stock! I was reading a cookbook this week which pointed out something so obvious, it really never occurred to me:

"Every time you buy a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store, eat the chicken and throw away the carcass, you've just thrown away a pot of chicken stock."

I've never made my own stock even though I know it isn't terribly complicated just because I didn't feel like playing with an entire chicken. But I've thrown away plenty of rotisserie chicken carcasses before, and the recipe was dead bang simple. It never occurred to me to use one, other than a turkey carcass every November.

So, with a Safeway grocery store rotisserie chicken sacrificed for the cause, here is my pot of stock waiting to cool, and be divided into one quart freezer bags.

ROTISSERIE CHICKEN STOCK
1 rotisserie chicken
1 onion
1 handful of carrots
1 handful of celery
1 garlic glove
Handful of herbs as you like
Whole Peppercorns

Strip the chicken of all the meat you wish to eat, leaving the skin, bones, and meat you don't want (I don't like dark meat, for instance), intact.

Put the entire carcass into a large stock pot and fill up with as much water as the pot will hold, and covering the carcass.

Throw in a handful of celery stalks with leaves intact, a handful of carrots (I only had shredded, so I added a cup of shredded), a whole onion cut in half, several tablespoons of various herbs, whatever is complimentary or you have on hand, 1 large elephant garlic clove, and about 10 peppercorns.

Bring to a rapid boil, then reduce heat, keep the pot covered, and simmer for 2 hours. As the liquid reduces during that 2 hours, replace with more water to keep the level up. For the second two hours, remove the lid, and let the stock reduce by half or until it reached a rich, dark golden color. Remove any fat or scum which floats to the surface (I had none, really).

Strain the whole pot into a large pan to remove bones, skin, veggies, meat. Then strain again through a smaller mesh strainer, as many times as you like, to get the broth clear.

I picked out a lot of meat from that pile you see and just nibbled on it, but most of the meat had been removed prior to the stock making.

It was really easy, really rich, really delicious, and so much better than ANY canned stock I've ever purchased.

Now I just need to make room for a bunch of bags of stock in my freezer. I think I'll be eating sugar free popsicles all night.

1 comment:

  1. Elephant ear garlic is not the same as garlic. It is a variation of Leek.

    ReplyDelete

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