How to boil, bone and save the stock.
For those of us who worked with Myra in her kitchen we learned quickly that she never wasted anything. We also learned the secret to her soups and some entrees was making and using her own chicken stock instead of using alternatives like cartons of stock or bouillon cubes from a shelf in the grocery store. Making your own stock is a simple process, but it takes time. The payoff is richer tasting food with less salt. It’s also cheaper!
First you have to purchase a whole chicken. If your chicken comes with the neck bone and internal organs, you can include the neck bone, but do not use the internal organs (they’ll give your stock a strange taste). My cats are always open to a chicken liver or heart treat when I get those, so you know what I do with them.
If you have a big enough pot, just put the whole chicken in the pot and cover it with water. If you need to, you can cut it into big pieces that will fit. Leave an inch of water above the chicken in the pot.
Add a quarter of an onion, a handful of celery ends that don’t look all that great and a heaping teaspoon of chicken base (you can add more base to taste if a heaping teaspoon isn’t enough for you). There’s a reason you want to use chicken base instead of stock or bouillon cubes. It’s just richer in taste. This is another Myra trick to add more flavor to her food. If you want to learn the difference between base, stock/broth and bouillon, I found the best article here. It’s worth the read!
Bring it all to a boil and skim any scum you see off of the top as it cooks. Let it cook for 20 minutes. Use your meat thermometer to check the temperature of the chicken in the thickest parts. The chicken is done cooking when the temperature reaches 165 degrees.
Take the chicken out and let it cool down. It’s easier to pick the meat off the bones when the chicken is still warm but not so hot it burns your fingers. As you pick the meat off of the bones, place the bones back in the broth. Cut the meat up and store it in the refrigerator or freezer until you need it for another recipe.
Once you’ve removed all of the meat and reunited the bones with the stock, simmer the stock for an hour to let it cook down. It’s at this point you can choose to add more base to taste or leave it as is. Once the stock is reduced after an hour, strain the bones and vegetables out of the stock and store in containers in the freezer until you need it.
Don’t forget to make a wish with the wish bone!
