I don’t know what it is around your neck of the woods, but around here, you can find chicken bits for under $1 a pound (for example, right now my local supermarket has chicken pinwheels on sale for 89 cents a pound. Chicken leg quarters at 59 cents a pound). You can make a gallon of stock for around $6-$9 with those prices (including veggies).
Yes.
I guess I’m a little surprised at the question. Homemade stock versus that stuff you buy at the store are two entirely different beasts. They shouldn’t even have the same name, IMO. I’ve never, for example, found a store-bought stock that gels. It’s just colored and salted water.
What are chicken pinwheels?
I’ve never had a problem with getting my stock to gel, even when I use leftover roasts, as long as there’s plenty of bone. I mostly make chicken stock, though, from a whole roasted chicken, and I usually cut the meat off the bone before serving it.
Some grocery chains want T-bone prices for stew meat and soup bones…I don’t get my soup meat from those chains.
Sorry, I wasn’t sure if this was common usage or not. They are chicken leg quarters that are separated. This actually may be quirky terminology used by this specific supermarket. I can’t find any reference to chicken pinwheels anywhere else.
Oh wow, that’s a lot cheaper than I figured it might be. I’ll have to browse around some more, and maybe stop by a local butcher/meat market.
OK, you’ve got a point. You get what you pay for; garbage in, garbage out, yadda yadda yadda.
I just figured that bones and meat bits would be as good as using the whole thing.
How do you use the meat that you make the stock with after making the stock?
I guess you could shred it to make burritos or sandwiches?
IME once you’ve made really good broth or stock, the meat itself has had all the goodness boiled right out of it. Give it to the dog, I guess (no bones!) but you’ll find the meat is chalky and oddly dry. I heard (no cite) that it’s less nutritious than normally-cooked meat, because so much of the protein etc. has leached out into the yummy nummy stock.
If I have bones and meat bits, I use them. But I go through stock much more quickly than I go through chicken itself, so I need to do it from stuff I can readily buy.
I’m with purplehorseshoe on this. If the meat isn’t tasteless, I haven’t cooked the stock long enough. I just throw it away.
To further comment: I like having homemade stock around. It’s a “secret” ingredient that increases the flavor of anything I use it in - stir fry sauces, casseroles, soups, etc. I make batches of beef and chicken stock, probably 10 or 15 quarts at a time, and freeze it in 1, 2, and 4 cup containers.
I also almost always have a veal demi-glace around. It’s more of a hassle to make, but a little goes a long way, and is the super secret wonderful ingredient.
Yes, the meat is pretty much just flavorless bulk at that point, as it’s cooked for so long. You might be able to convince yourself to eat it if you mix it with some assertive sauce.
Thing is, for stock (as opposed to broth), you really don’t need/want that much meat. You want mostly bones. I usually make stock out of leftover bones, backs, and necks I accumulate in the fridge from bone-in chickens I buy. If you don’t want to waste all that meat, you can just buy a cheap bag of thighs, roughly filet it off the bone, and save the meat and just make the stock from the bones and leftover bits of meat clinging to it. As I said above, be sure to cleave the bones so you can get maximum gelling power out of them. If you can find a cheap bag of chicken backs and/or necks, that’s perfect for stock making. However, I usually find stuff like legs or thighs sell for cheaper in bulk than any other random chicken bit, oddly enough.
You’ll want to simmer for a minimum for four hours, preferably about 6. If you have a pressure cooker, you can cook up a stock in about an hour. Pressure cooker stock is amazingly handy, although it’s more difficult to make in bulk, do to limitations on the size of the cooking vessel.
I don’t have a recipe for soup stock. I collect bones from chicken, scraps of other meats, the tag ends of veggies I’m chopping up.
I simmer at the lowest setting of my gas stove. When the liquid is quite reduced I strain and cool it.
I then use it for the next couple sets of scraps, to get as much flavor as possible in the liquid.
After straining and cooling a final time I skim off any congealed fat. Then I put it to simmer until it is reduced to a strength that tastes good. Sometimes I reduce it to almost a syrup, less than a half cup, and use the result to flavor a gravy.
I just got around to making stock this weekend.
I had a freezer bag that I collected scraps bones and carcasses (ham bone, roaster chickens, hotwing bones, etc…) in until it was full.
I put those into a stock pot, then added celery, bell pepper, garlic, a tomato, a Serrano pepper, and some other herbs and veggies I had laying around.
I brought to boil then let simmer for 8 hours.
I strained this into about 1.5 pints, then filled with water again and repeated the process.
The first flush was THE best stock I have ever tasted. I chilled while the second flush was simmering. After it was congealed, much thicker than jello, I heated and filled up an ice tray for storage.
I mixed the leftovers of that with the second flush, and in total I think I got around a .5 - 1 gallon of very flavorful stock.
I will definitely be doing this again.
For a wonderful side dish, I slice mushrooms and sautee then simmer in a bit of the stock and serve over meat or rice.
Happy dance!
Homemade stock is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Like butter, it can elevate a simple meal into something sublime. Yay for you!