this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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Hmm I’ve never made stock before.
So damn easy. Pack chicken bones and a carrot and onion (chopped or not according to how many fs you give) in a slow cooker or rice cooker or big pot on stove. Add water until everything is just covered. Turn on to very low heat (slow/rice cooker needs low setting heat not the keep warm function) and wait until it starts to simmer (occasional bubbles). Don't cover the pot for this stage, which can take up to an hour. Leave it on very low heat for another two hours with the lid ajar. Stock is now made. Pour through a strainer to remove the veg & bones and toss them into the compost or bin. Keep the liquid in a bowl in the fridge overnight where it should set fairly solid. Scrape off any fat that's on the surface and toss it as above. Remelt the stock, then pour into storage containers or ice cube trays. Freeze or use within 2 days.
Veg stock usually doesn't need to be skimmed but can be used or frozen straight away. Use peels and ends and other unused bits of your regular veg to make it, except don't use potato or cabbage tribe. Only needs about 1 hour of first boiling. Don't re-boil veg stock as this spoils the flavour imo.
If not freezing chicken, beef or pork stock, then it needs to be re-boiled every 2 days to kill germs. Flavour improves with each re-boiling too as water evaporates.
Beef and pork stock is the same as chicken, except the first boil can go for 4-5 hours. Marrowbones make excellent beef stock. As do rib bones. Check the pet section of the supermarket for these. You may like to roast beef bones for half an hour in a hot oven to make them brown before making stock with them. Then the stock will be a nice brown colour perfect for stews etc.
I would caution against adding salt or garlic to the first boil of a stock. These really should go in the final dish imo.
Thanks for the advice!
I have some coordination issues because I’m not cooking all the drumsticks in one go I think so that might make it hard to make the stock.
I also have a slow cooker I haven’t used yet so it might be a good opportunity to use it for the stock.
Dumb question but what would you use the stock to make after it’s made? I haven’t personally used stock for making anything.
Thanks. Might do that.
Next step is what to use the stock for.
Woohoo, a stock virgin! Basically, it's a flavoured liquid. You can add stock to stirfries (one or two icecube portions) to massively help out the sauce. You can heat about a cupful of stock per person and cook vegies in it, then blitz to a puree for a lovely soup. When stewing anything, using stock instead of water. It makes a delicious gravy with zero effort. In fact, it's worth making stock just for gravy .... you only need a simple roux and add stock for a basic gravy, and then put in any additional flavourings such as garlic, mustard etc. Stock of any kind just upsizes the flavour component of any savory dish. My personal favorite is to add about 50% stock to water when cooking rice by the absorption method. Gamechanger! No need to salt the rice, and the depth of flavour is amazing. Fish stock cooked rice is particularly delicious.
Re drumsticks. Once the meat is eaten, chuck the bones in a baggie and then into the freezer. When you have 6 of these available, you have enough to make a small batch of chicken stock. I usually go for 2 chicken carcasses (fresh or frozen) bone only plus carrot and onion as above to make about 1.5 litres of stock if you break up the carcasses so they are flattish in the slow cooker.
But soup or ramen would be a good intro to stock. And easy.