CHICKEN STOCK
This Recipe Makes 1ℓ Of Stock (1 Litre)
Chicken Stock is mostly common with various American, Spanish or Mexican dishes. It is a staple ingredient in most countries & is used in sauces, soups & even rice dishes.
Stock is an enhanced liquid preparation. It shapes the premise of many dishes, especially soups & sauces. Making stocks includes stewing animal bones or meat, seafood, or vegetables in water or wine.
The flavour of the stock originates from the ligament & connective tissue in the bones. Connective tissue has collagen in it, which gets changed over into gelatin that thickens the fluid. Stock produced using bones should be stewed for longer than stock produced using meat.
Generally, stock is made by stewing different ingredients in water for as long as possible. A more up to date approach is to utilize a pressure cooker, which will in fact save heaps of time.
You don’t have to fuss about correct amounts of vegetables or accumulating chicken bones in your cooler. You can make stock when you finish roasting a bird utilizing whatever vegetables are in your refrigerator. Regardless, homemade stock is way better that those processed stock cubes or liquidized ones that you find at the grocer.
Chicken Stock Ingredients:
- Chicken meat pieces, chicken bones or left over cooked chicken (I used off-cuts of chicken bones which had a little meat on them)
- 1 onion
- 2 tablespoons dried mixed herbs
- 1 ½ tablespoons chicken spice
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Carrots
- 2 garlic cloves (optional)
- 3 sprigs thyme
- Water
- Mushrooms (optional)
Method:
- Peel onion & cut into half.
- Cut the carrots into chunks.
- Slice mushrooms in halves.
- Place all the ingredients in a pot of water. More vegetables of your choice can be added.
- Mix well & allow to simmer on low with the lid on for as many hours as possible.
- Keep adding water if the water tends to dry out – you don’t want the pot to be without any liquid as the liquid hold all the flavour & will soon be the stock.
- After hours of simmering & you think the chicken stock is ready to use, use a strainer to separate out the solid pieces.& pour the liquid into a bowl.
- Discard of the vegetables & chicken meat or bones.
- The liquid should be brown in colour.
- Allow the stock to cool, then separate into portion-sized containers. Refrigerate stock for up to a week or freeze it indefinitely.
- Can be used immediately in dishes such as soups, stews (Chicken Stew, Lamb Stew, etc).