Taking Stock

When the weather 'round these parts starts getting cooler, we make soup and stew and chili and all kinds of comfort foods.

One of the primary components of soup is a good stock.

These days, you can buy decent stock in aseptic cartons at the grocery store, but if you're properly motivated, you can make it yourself.

Me, I've been fairly motivated, but I didn't have the appropriate equipment to try Alton Brown's recipe, although I've had the requisite chicken carcasses, vegetables, and herbs in the house at various points this year. 

My mother, generous soul that she is, offered me the loan of her stockpot so I could actually clear the carcasses out of my freezer and turn them into stock.

Shopping List

• fresh parsley
• fresh thyme

I already had the 4lbs of chicken carcasses, leek, onion, carrots, and celery ribs prepped in the freezer and I always have bay leaves and peppercorns in the pantry.

Recipe Review

Ease of Preparation

This is very easy, but you do absolutely need the correct size stockpot. AB calls for a 12qt pot for stock-making, which is the size I borrowed from Mom. (My largest stockpot is 5qt.)

Collecting the carcasses is also time-consuming, but the munchkin had taken quite well to roast chicken for dinner over the last year, so I had plenty.

My sister could certainly do this if she put her mind to it.

Specialty equipment required?

Yes. 

In addition to the stockpot, you need a strainer - to remove the solids from your stock - and a smaller stockpot or large bowl to hold the stock you make. (Wouldn't want your 12 hours' work to literally go down the drain, would you?)

It's also suggested that a vegetable steamer be used to help keep the vegetables and chicken parts submerged, though I don't know if this is completely necessary. It is quite helpful, though.

Rating?

Well, this is kind of sticky. 

It's not an every day or even an every week rotation type of recipe, but that's mostly because I haven't got chicken parts every day. I've got several quarts of stock in my freezer, which should get me through the winter without having to buy box stock (yay!) but haven't had occasion to make soup yet.

I did use some of it in a slow-cooker pulled pork recipe (16oz frozen stock, 1-2 thinly sliced onions, 2lbs bone-in pork shoulder, 1c apple cider; cook on LOW for 8-10hrs, drain, pull, mix with favorite BBQ sauce & serve) and it turned out nicely, so that portion of this batch was a win.

We'll see how it goes as the season progresses. 

Let's Talk Comfort Food

When the weather reports that it's colder in some states than in Fairbanks, Alaska, we kind of want to curl up under a blanket, with a cup of tea and a bowl of something hot (and probably calorically dense.)

Comfort food.

For some people, it might be chicken soup. Others' version might be chili. Still others might prefer lasagna. Or whatever. 

Me, I'm partial to Babu's halubke. (For those of you who don't transliterate Slovak, halubke is "stuffed cabbage." And "Babu" is what my daughter has been invited to call my maternal grandmother.)

However, since I haven't got the how-to, cabbage, or Babu's recipe (we're supposed to make time to make it together), I'll have to go a different direction.

Today, I've got Slow Cooker Chicken and Dumplings working in the kitchen.

Tomorrow, we're doing chili. (With box-mix cornbread.)

Over the next few days, I'll be checking my cookbooks for comfort food recipes. Spring can't come soon enough!!

Trying a New Technique

Because I'm still adjusting to being home, I'm keeping things rather simple this week.

So, rather than try a new recipe today and tomorrow (I'm probably putting that off 'til Saturday for Valentine's Day), I'm trying a new technique.

Poaching chicken.

Poaching is defined as "cooking something in a small amount of liquid." 

I have never successfully poached chicken, though I've tried in the past.

Today, I want to make chicken soup so I can use up some box-stock (yes, I know, AB has a stock recipe, but I don't currently have a 12-qt stockpot in the house, though I think I do at least have one) and broth, but I haven't roasted a chicken recently. 

The hubs suggested I use canned chicken. Thanks, honey, but if I'm going out anyway, why don't I just get chicken parts?

I'm OK with canned chicken in certain applications, like buffalo chicken dip and the spinach-and-chicken flatbread recipe from last week, but not so OK with it in soup. It can taste a little artificial if it's not slathered in cream ... and I'm not slathering anything with cream.

For today's experiment, I got a package of "organic" split chicken breasts and a package of bone-in chicken thighs, some fresh ginger, garlic, and a large onion, in addition to the ready-to-use "soup starter" and "soup greens" pre-mixed packs in the Produce section at Wegmans and a bag of organic lemons from TJs. (Most times, I find this is cheaper than to buy everything separately.)

Poaching doesn't exactly follow a recipe, but there's a method, so I followed the one I linked above from The Kitchn blog. 

Those instructions are very clear and they give both a "how to check if your chicken is done" and a "how long should I simmer my chicken" instruction, which I find very helpful. I do wish, however, that I had a deeper pan because my poaching liquid did run over a bit onto my stovetop. (I'll have to clean it again.)

As the chicken is cooked, all I'll need to do to prep it for soup is ... remove it from the bone & chop it before I add it to the pot. Easy-peasy!