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CHICKEN STOCK
Chicken # 1:
6 lbs chicken backs and wings, rinsed
4 ribs celery with leaves
4 carrots (with peels), halved
2 onions (with peels), halved
2 parsnips (with peels), halved
4 cloves garlic, lightly mashed
8 sprigs Italian parsley
24 sprigs dill
2 bunches fresh thyme
6 black peppercorns
4 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
Water to cover
Bring all of the above to a boil in a large pot over medium heat. Simmer, partially covered for 2 hours, skimming the foam off the top. Cool and strain.
Chicken # 2:
Roast a chicken or two for dinner in whatever fashion pleases you, but - after you have served the best of the bird, break up the neck, back, wing tips, and other pieces left over on the carcass and toss it in a medium size pot. To this, add the accumulation of veggies to make stock with that you have been faithfully tossing into the freezer bag kept for such things. This will be celery trimmings and leafs, broccoli, carrots, onions, mushroom stems, parsnips or whatever happens to amass. (This should be about 1-1.5 cups per bird.)
Add one whole chopped onion and 3-4 cloves of garlic to the above mixture and then cover it completely with water. If you have some garden herbs that are looking a little peeked or fresh favorites that you like, add them at this time. Slowly bring the stock to a boil over medium heat and reduce your flame so that it can simmer. You will continue to let it simmer until you have a reduced amount of liquid equal to no more that a quarter of what you started with. This will make a very intensely flavored stock which can be used on its own or diluted to make soup.
Pour the stock through a large sieve and let it cool a little so that you can handle it. Strain it through a fine sieve and pour it into ice cube trays. Cover the trays with saran wrap and freeze. Each ice cube will give you about a tablespoon worth of stock for making sauces or whatever you might need it for.
Note: You can strip any extra chicken meat from the remaining bones and use it to flavor pasta sauces, other soups, sandwich spreads, etc. |
