Alton Brown’s Chicken Stock Recipe
I’ve been saving up chicken & turkey carcasses and am going to attempt this today. My question is, Alton says put a steamer basket on top of the ingredients before you pour the water over them - why? I am sure this is a stupid question but I’m just not seeing what difference that would make.
To keep the solids immersed in the liquid.
Ok, so I’m leaving it on then. See, I knew it was a stupid questions ;).
Weird. I’ve never had problems keeping the solids in the water. I can’t see that it’s necessary to add a steamer basket at all.
Certainly not stupid! I never saw that before I had seen Alton’s Good Eats episode. It’s not automatically intuitive.
I’ve got chicken soup going right now in the pressure cooker. It’s a good day for soup.
Meh, I wouldn’t be overly concerned about it. It’s been a long time since I’ve made stock, but IIRC something (bones?) tend to float to the top, but big deal. You’ll still get everything out of them after 97 hours of boiling.
As much as I like Alton, sometimes he goes out of his way to be clever. Sometimes it makes sense, but sometimes it’s just an extra dish to clean.
Thanks everyone…I’ll let you know how it turns out. Off to the store to buy a leek :).
When I was younger and more gullible, I loved Aleister Crowley. He was notorious in his grimoires for including fake instructions designed to destroy the works of ignorant amateurs.
In the same way, when I read of Alton Brown requiring a hair dryer to make fajitas, or a steamer basket to make stock, I think he’s just fucking with us.
It’s not a stupid question – its an absolutely nonsensical requirement that dirties a hard to clean pan to no purpose at all.
Seriously Alton. Get over yourself.
I could see where the steamer basket would make skimming the stock easier without all the floating veggies for the flotsam to get caught up in.
But most home cooks aren’t looking for crystal clear stock and there are other methods that can be used to de-grease and clarify. I think most food shows just have to try and put a new spin on old standards to maintain an impression of cutting edge technique.
I use a pasta penta to make small batches of stock, but I put everything into the deep basket with the herbs in cheesecloth - when I am done SIMMERING NEVER BOILING I lift the basket and support it on a pair of thin wooden spoons and gently press the contents and let any stock dribble down back into the pot after taking it off heat. Pop it in the fridge or out back on the deck in the winter to chill to float the fat in a disc to be removed, then I can start simmering it down to the concentration I want.
Saves ever so much time, everything can get conveniently tipped into the garbage. I rarely make soup from already cooked meat and bones after I have simmered all the flavor out of them, so I make chicken stock from the oldest toughest chickens I can find, they have the best flavor to extract. Once I have made the stock, I can then gently simmer the chicken I want to have in the soup long enough to get it cooked through, with fresh veggies cut to a size that will cook in the same half an hour or so it takes to cook the chicken meat and I prefer to add already cooked egg noodles at the end long enough before serving to reheat them.
Beef stew I make from chunks of beef and vegetables with the herbs and spices for flavor without boiling it for several hours. I might use stock if I have some in the freezer and I am lazy, though I can get full on stew flavor starting with water and never ever adding a nasty bouillion cube.
No, yesterday was a good day for chicken soup. Mmmm.
Does a pressure cooker do anything but cook it faster? I just simmer in a big stock pot.
I did chicken soup yesterday, too. Must have been a good day everywhere!
I had stock in the freezer, so I skipped that step. 
As far as I know, no, but it does make dang good stock or broth in hurry. Really extracts all that flavor in no time flat. My problem is, I don’t have anywhere near a pressure cooker large enough for the amount of stock I usually make at one time.