Chicken Stock

Of all the recipes in this collection, chicken stock is perhaps the most important and certainly the most versatile. In addition to being a base for many of these recipes or their sauces, it can almost always be used to give a dish more body, richness, and depth of flavor. It can become the base for a dish like a soup, stew, or braise; it can be fortified with more bones and turned into a sauce; it can be reduced down to a demi-glace and used as the basis for countless sauces or glazes. It freezes well and is simple enough to prepare, so there’s no real reason not to have any on hand.

When adding chicken stock to a recipe in any quantity, the difference between success and failure, between triumph and bitterness, between glory and defeat, is a certain threshold of quality, and in that regard, this is one thing where there’s no substitute for homemade. There are some things, like puff pastry, that are somewhat tedious to make at home, and once you compare your version to the store bought one, you’ll probably say, why bother? Chicken stock is quite the opposite. I admit to keeping a box or two on hand of the store bought stuff, but there will be an instant and recognizable difference in the overall quality of your finished dish if you can pull the made-from-scratch kind out of your fridge or freezer, and we’re not just talking about flavor here. One of the main reasons to use chicken stock is for the gelatinous materials that it contains, which gives your dish its richness and body, and which is conspicuously absent from most of the pre-made stuff. Those gelatinous materials come from bones, and the process of making chicken stock is a low and slow one, giving all of those tough elements a chance to break down and incorporate into the liquid. Using real chicken stock is guaranteed to elevate your cooking to a higher level, and it’s often the reason restaurant food tastes better than yours – that, and a lot of butter.

It’s simple enough to make your chicken stock at home, although it does take a few hours of casually monitoring it, as well as a few simple rules and techniques to ensure that you end up with something you want to work with. In order to better understand these techniques, let’s first distinguish a stock from a broth, and then based on that, determine all the things we want it to be. Although a fair amount of discussion could be entertained distinguishing stocks and broths, in my view there are two areas where they are distinctly different: preparation and end use. Both are liquids that contain the essence of their main ingredient, in this case chicken, but the preparation of stocks involves bones, while broths involve meat, and the final product, in the case of a stock, is used to create something else, while broths are meant to be eaten directly (usually with the addition of solids, such as meat, vegetables, or starches). Stocks are also generally more intensely flavored than broths, at least in terms of their potential: when your mom makes chicken soup, she usually puts a whole chicken in a pot of water, adds onions and carrots and celery and whatever else, simmers the whole thing for a couple of hours, and then you eat everything in there, whereas a stock made in the same pot can contain the bones of 6 chickens, and at least as many vegetables. So you may be getting a little more bang for your buck.

Given that a stock is prepared for other purposes, we can establish what it needs to be, ideally. First and foremost, it needs to be neutral on two fronts: salt and fat. It should have no salt in it at all, and as little fat as possible. The reason for this is because when you’re building a dish, you want to control every ingredient that you’re adding. If you add chicken stock to a dish and it has a bunch of salt dissolved into it, you have no real way of knowing how much salt you’re eventually adding and could easily end up with a dish that’s way too salty. Same goes for fat – if you’re unwittingly adding undue amounts of chicken fat to your dish as you add your stock, your dish could end up far greasier than expected. And the same goes for all that other gunk: the bones release all sorts of stuff which are generally referred to as “impurities” (I’m sure there’s a more scientific explanation for what they are, collectively) and they’re gross and you don’t want them around in anything you’re making. A chicken stock should be as clear as possible – and the flavor should be a rich yet delicate essence of chicken, with the addition of aromatics (mirepoix) and herbs.

The good news is that it’s fairly easy to remove all traces of fats, impurities and salt. The salt is actually really easy – just don’t add any. As for the fats and impurities, they will float to the surface of the stock while it’s cooking and can be easily skimmed away. The key rule with stock is gently. The principle of gentleness should govern everything you do while preparing a stock. Gentleness means that you start everything in cold water – so that it comes up to temperature as gently as possible. Gentleness means that when the stock is finished, you lift the solids out before straining it. Gentleness means that you cook the stock at the lowest temperature possible – lower than a simmer, in fact. The French word to describe the proper rate at which a stock should cook is frisson, or shiver – rather than simmering happily, the stock should appear to just be shivering in the pot, with tiny bubbles rising steadily from the bottom, and the surface of the liquid in constant yet ever-so-slight motion. If you plunge your bones into boiling water, or a rolling boil is maintained for too long, or you recklessly pour the whole thing over a strainer when it’s finished, those impurities and fats will roil and eventually incorporate into the liquid. The gentle method of cooking a stock allows them to rise to the surface and sit there, where they can be neatly scooped up and disposed of. In a kitchen organized in the French manner, there is usually a huge pot of either chicken or veal stock shivering away in the back throughout the day and often service, and it is typically the responsibility of the junior cooks to regularly skim the stock. But it is also not uncommon to see more or less everyone pausing for a quick skim as they pass by on the way back and forth between the walk-in and the line. You don’t need to be maniacal about skimming, standing over the pot for 3½ hours, but every 10-15 minutes or so is a good idea if possible. The more you skim, the better quality stock you’ll have.

So to sum up the basic rules:

• Start in cold water
• Skim early and often
• Be gentle in all that you do

I usually let the finished stock chill in the refrigerator overnight, then skim off any fat that has congealed and hardened on the surface. Then I pour it into individual 16-oz paper cups, cover them with plastic wrap, and throw them into the freezer. One or two of those cups is usually good for a recipe. Occasionally, I’ve also filled an ice tray with chicken stock, so I’ve got little portions to utilize when a sauce just needs a little expanding, but I don’t want to thin it out too much by adding water. Chicken stock is an excellent way to prevent a sauce from getting to dry without really thinning it out.

Ingredients:

• Backs and necks from 6 chickens
• 1 very large onion, rough chop
• 2 large carrots, or 4 medium, rough chop
• 4 stalks celery, rough chop
• 3 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 small handful fresh parsley stems
• 1 smaller handful fresh thyme sprigs
• 2 bay leaves
• 12 whole black peppercorns (or so)

Directions:

Begin by rinsing off the chicken carcasses. You want to get rid of any blood clots or deposits of fat or other goo that’s sticking to them – although any meat that’s still on there should go into the pot. If you have legs and wings, that’s fine, but I’ve made a stock with just legs, and it was not nearly as delicious, and very jelly-like.

Place the bones into a large stock pot and cover with cold water by 2 inches. I use only filtered water for this, because you’re not making shrimp stock here. Turn the heat on high and chop your vegetables while it is coming up. Place your mirepoix (onions, carrots, celery) into a bowl with the garlic and give it a toss or two with your hands so that it is somewhat evenly distributed – doesn’t need to be exact.

When the water in the pot is close to a boil, you will see some churning movement in the pot, and large bubbles of gray scum will form on the surface. This is the most important skim you’ll do, probably, since this is most of the gross stuff, impurities, and anything else that was clinging to the outside of the bones, and this is your best chance to get it all cleanly. You’ll need a small bowl or pot to keep next to the chicken stock, which you’ll deposit all of your skimmings into and a large, shallow serving spoon. You can also skim with a ladle turned almost 90 degrees, so that its lip runs along the surface, but this is less exacting than a shallow spoon.

Turn the heat down to medium low when you deem that it’s a minute or two away from coming to a boil, and skim off as much of the impurities as you can. When the liquid comes to a simmer, pour in your mirepoix as gently as you can. If some of the mixture is sticking up in the air, you may press down on it gently to submerge it. Add the herbs and wait for it to come back to just a simmer, then reduce the heat until it is just shivering. You may need to play with it a bit, and don’t be overly dogmatic – if you’ve got a thin or crappy-bottomed pot, it may not distribute the heat evenly and it might not be possible to get a good shiver going on without isolating some areas and creating dead zones where not much is happening. Ultimately, you’ve got to cook this thing, so err on the side of too much heat rather than too little, and later on, go out and get yourself a quality stock pot, or a diffuser, which is highly recommended either way.

Cook, skimming every 10-15 minutes or so, for 3.5 hours. The level of the liquid will drop by an inch or two, and you may have some odds and ends sticking out into the air – try to gently press down on things so that they stay under, but don’t sweat it too much. If the liquid has gone way down, and half the stuff is out of water, you’ve done something wrong – either been way too overzealous with your skimming – remember you’re skimming, not ladling out gruel in Oz – or your heat has been too high. Repeat the word “gentleness” several times, add more water, and reset the clock by however much you deem appropriate.

When the stock has finished, taste it to make sure it’s righteous, then shut off the heat. Using a fine mesh strainer with a long handle, begin to gently scoop out the solids, letting them drip back into the stock pot as much as possible. Deposit these into another bowl; when they cool, you’re going to throw them out. Finally, when most of the solids have been removed, pour the stock through a fine mesh strainer into another pot. You can line the strainer with cheese cloth if you like. There should be some sand-like solids right on the bottom – stop pouring right before those leave the pot and discard them. From here, you may further de-fat the stock by letting it sit for about 5 minutes, then blotting the surface with paper towels. (Grip each end of a section of paper towel in each hand and sort of roll it across the surface.) I usually find this gets rid of more stock than is necessary, and besides, at this point, there really shouldn’t be that much fat. After you leave it in the fridge overnight, there should be smallish circles of fat that have risen and hardened, and you can scoop these away quite easily. If the surface of your stock is a layer of wall to wall fat at this point, you didn’t skim enough of it off! But no worries, just get rid of it then.

You’re now ready to go, and what a difference it will make. Package it up and use liberally.

Here’s a variation, which I rarely but sometimes do:

The stock above is sometimes called a white chicken stock. A brown chicken stock is prepared in the same way, except that you roast the bones and vegetables first. Here’s a quick how to:

All of the ingredients remain the same, except that you’ll add about 2 TBS of safflower or other high-heat oil, and 2 TBS of tomato paste. Start by preheating the oven to 450. After rinsing the bones off, pat them dry and toss them in a bowl with the oil so they’re filmed but not dripping. Spread them out on a sheet pan or cookie tray and place in the oven for about 30-40 minutes, until they’re nicely browned.

Meanwhile, sauté the mirepoix in a large pan until the vegetables have begun to brown. Add the tomato paste and stir to combine. Cook for another 2-3 minutes over high heat, until the tomato paste has coated the bottom of the pan and everything has taken on a rust color. Deglaze the pan with a bit of water, then hold the vegetables in the pan.

When the bones are done, add them to the stock pot and cover with water, as above. Deglaze the sheet pan with water (you can put this directly on the range) and add it to the pot. Follow the same instructions as above, adding the vegetables and herbs after the initial skim. The stock in this case will have a richer flavor and darker color, but can be used in almost all of the same situations as the white chicken stock. I generally just make white chicken stock, but occasionally a brown chicken stock is useful when a dish seems like it will benefit from that added richness or color.