Chicken Stock

My friends at Blue Valley Meats in Walla Walla offer frozen chicken soup bones for sale. Awesome, right? The thing I love most about these guys is that I know they're good. Truly. I've worked with a couple of the owners first hand for a couple of years, in two different kitchens. They are knowledgeable, passionate, and picky about food. Picky is important, in my eyes. 

 

Anyway, I ordered chicken bones from them over the summer, and this week, I dug them out of the freezer, as it's BIG TIME soup season in the Pacific Northwest. 

 

Before I could make my stock, I had to thaw the bones. In the couple days of waiting, I stumbled upon some freshly butchered chicken carcasses at Uwajimaya yesterday. Now, these chix probably weren't raised as well as the ones Blue Valley have, but the stuff at Waji's usually is pretty decent. And, they cost 1/3 of the price, and weren't frozen. If I'm going to make a pot of stock, why not make a bigger batch?

 

And, now, I'm making chicken stock.

 

I've just pulled the carcasses out of the oven. I roasted them at 375 degrees F for 30 minutes. They didn't look as golden brown as I'd like, so I turned up the heat to 425 F, and let them go another 10-15 minutes. Here's the part I'm not sure of. Do I scrape up the brown bits from the bottom of the pan or not? I've seen some chefs do it, others don't like it because it gets up too much impurities. In my case today, I'm skipping, as I opted to line the bottom of my pan with foil (easier cleaning), and it doesn't look like it'll be easy to scrape. But, overall, I think I'm in the school of thought of NOT scraping. Right or wrong, I'm not positive. Comments/thoughts?

 

I have about 4 pounds of bones. If my memory serves me correctly, it's about a 80/20 ratio of chicken:mirepoix for stock. I have about 10 ounces of it. I'd do a bit more, but I forgot to buy an onion yesterday. Typically, you'd want half onion/leek, a quarter carrots, and a quarter celery. I'm about 1/3 each. I also have 2 bay leaves, several small cloves of garlic and a small bunch of fresh thyme.

 

My bones have cooled, and now I'm ready to make my stock. 

 

Cover the bones with enough cold water to come up 2 inches above the top of the bones. I have an 8-quart stock pot, which the bones come up about halfway. Set this on the stove, turn the burner on to high, allow to come to a gentle boil. Immediately, drop the heat to a low simmer. Do not let it become a rolling boil, nor let it boil very long, as this will stir up the impurities and cloud your stock. Scrape off any "scum" that comes up to the top of the water, and add your mirepoix and aromatics. Now, let it simmer for as long as you can stand to wait. No, seriously, ideally, you'd let it go 8-12 hours, to really extract the flavors and richness from the bones. I had mine going until 9pm, about 6 hours. I didn't want to be putting it away at midnight. It was flavorful and lovely, but not super rich, as in gelatinous. I'm sure there will be no "jiggle" it when it's cooled. That could just be due to the part of the chicken I used. Nonetheless, there will be delicious soup had with this stock, I'm sure.

 

Oh yeah, strain through a fine sieve, if you have one, and cool. I used a coffee filter to help me strain. I strained the stock into a pot in an ice bath, then transferred to a shallow dish in the fridge to finish cooling. You want to make sure it cools within 2 hours for safety purposes.