richness in a pot
I’ve posted the recipes for regular chicken stock and for rich duck stock here before, but I just realized that I’ve not put up recipes for beef stock or brown chicken stock yet. This recipe is for brown chicken stock, but the recipe for the beef stock is exactly the same, just sub in beef bones for the chicken pieces. Having these two stocks in your freezer, ready when you need them, will make you feel very rich indeed, as there is nothing better than homemade stock! I’m including nearly a dozen pictures to make it as easy as possible to follow along.
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March 12, 2011 1 Comment
lucky duck
I had the good fortune of being given more than a dozen cooked duck legs and thighs to use however I choose! (Thank you, Barbara!) What to do with this unexpected treasure? I decided to shred off all the meat and reserved it for a recipe I shall post tomorrow and then use all the bones to make luscious, gelatinous (as seen above), and luxurious duck stock. Having a load of duck stock in your freezer is akin to having a trust fund at your disposal. A good duck stock can be the base for wonderful soups, stews, ragouts, cassoulets, and sauces. If you do not have enough duck pieces, use a mixture of 75% duck bones and 25% chicken bones. The stock can be stored in the freezer for up to 1 year.
Some of the best soups are made with a combination of homemade duck and chicken stocks. I’ll use the duck stock to deglaze the pan for richer chicken and beef dishes, and it is fabulous as a component of out-of-this-world chicken pot pie. Unless you’re making duck soup, duck stock is generally used in smaller amounts due to its distinctive flavor and richness, so freeze it in small quantities, as seen here in muffin tins, so that it can easily throw it into dishes without having to defrost more than needed. The six cups of stock I made yielded 20 muffin cup-size portions.
A note on my complete and utter laziness … you’ll notice that I used carrot and celery pieces from some Costco Chicken Soup purchased for Marissa and myself, instead of driving to the store to purchase those two necessities. What can I say, I don’t feel all that swell with my swollen head and I generally pick out the carrots from my chicken soup anyhow, so what the heck!
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November 11, 2010 No Comments
chicken stock and a very cool shadow face
A common question in the culinary world is what is the difference between a broth and a stock? I will answer this question using chicken or poultry as the type of broth/stock, but the answer applies to any protein based broth/stock, meaning beef, fish, pork, etc. Vegetable broth, on the other hand, can only be a broth, not a stock. You will understand why in just a moment. Broth is made with the chicken meat and chicken parts, with a high flesh to bone ratio. Whole chicken, such as a fryer, can be used. The cooking time for a broth is about 3 hours.
Chicken stock is made mostly of chicken parts that have a very low flesh to bone ratio. Whole chicken carcasses or pieces such as the backs, necks, breast bones, wing tips, legs, and if you’re lucky enough to find them, even the feet, all make excellent stock. The cooking time for a stock is at least 6 hours.
The basic difference between a broth and a stock is in its richness. This is because the stock contains more gelée than chicken broth does. Gelée is the gelatin from dissolved cartilage or collagen given off from the bones. Stock has a fuller mouth feel and richer flavor than broth and stock will bind up the pan drippings when deglazing a pan to make a sauce. That is why restaurant sauces taste so wonderful and can be so difficult for a home cook to recreate… unless you make your own stock.
Another important advantage to making stock at home is the fact that you can avoid the higher sodium content in store-bought broths. You will notice that in the recipe below there is no salt. That is because there are so many uses for stock (sauces, soups, gravies, bases, pasta, etc.) so wait until you’re preparing the dish you’re going to eat and salt that – not the stock.
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October 12, 2009 12 Comments