I never noticed that, but I might just try throwing in the meat later to see if it makes a difference for me. Serious Eats just uses whole parts and simmers it for an hour thirty or pressure cook for 45 minutes (which is what I do.)
Yeah, I’ve tried a lot of different “recipes”. If i use only bones, with no meat, skin, or drippings, i think the stock comes out bland. But if i use too much meat i think it ends up muddy, and not as thick as I’d like. (I guess i hold the volumes relatively constant, so more meat means less bone.)
And i don’t care for boiled chicken meat. I don’t even love it diced and thrown into the soup. But i really don’t like it served on its own. I really like chicken meat, and want it to have a nice rich chicken flavor when i eat it. So i roast or saute the flesh i plan to eat. The leftover scraps that get used for soup get thrown out with the bones and the soggy bits of vegetable.
This is my method, too, more or less, including the colander insert. Minus the tomato paste, plus celery. I’ll have to try it with the tomato paste!
I’m a Scarborough Fair herb advocate for this stock and don’t use a bouquet garni.
Two secrets shared with me from a Jewish chef: Leave the skins on the onions for color, add a pinch of dill weed for taste.
I’m an advocate of adding the chicken meat in after. Adding the meat too early or using it as part of the stock process leaves it tasteless and stringy, IMHO.
I make chicken bone broth pretty often. I make a basic one adaptable to various uses, but often as a base for soup.
My vegetables and spices are fairly similar to the ones already mentioned, but more of them. I often add a bouillon cube, both for the flavour and the MSG, even though it is fine without it and you could just add MSG separately. Sone of the ingredients added are just because they are healthy.
Not added vinegar, maybe will try that. My usual acid is lemon or lime juice.
Yeah, I might try a splash of vinegar next time, and see what that does to the stock. Or… on a whim, I bought a bag of citric acid. Last time I used it, I used WAY too much, and while the pie was edible, it was too sour, even for my sour-loving palette. But I wonder if a little citric acid might brighten the broth and help dissolve the bones. Any thoughts?
I have used vinegar, citric acid, and lemon juice in my stocks. IMHO - lemon juice works best, followed by cider vinegar, followed by citric acid. Lemon juice adds just the touch of acidity to brighten, with minimal added flavor. Cider vinegar works, but it seems to need more by volume to brighten, with the chance of adding flavor (white vinegar always seems to add a harsh taste, but white wine vinegar is also normally cheap crap so that is likely the issue), citric acid is super neutral, but the last batch I bought seemed to need to use too much to justify the cost even from the Asian market - easier to just use the lemon or vinegar.
Note to last - the most recent batch of citric acid was bought during Pandemic pricing, I see that it’s gone down to something a lot more reasonable, so will have to re-evaluate the cost per usage. Still, since I buy Volcano lemon juice in the liter bottle from Costco for general cooking, it may still not be worth it considering how overstuffed my spice rack and pantry are.
Stock? Broth? Call it consommé and it instantly tastes better.
I usually buy whole chickens and separate the legs, breasts and wings and make the consommé with the carcass. Starting with cold water boil forever barely simmering, scoop the foam off, add the veggies (onions, celery root, celery, parsnip, carrots, garlic, leek, whatever is in the fridge or in the freezer) and the herbs (in a bag, for easy retrieval): coriander seeds, clove, allspice corns, juniper berries, bay leaves, thyme, rosemary, pepper, shezuan pepper (not always all at the same time). No salt. Take everything out of the liquid and reduce by 1/3. Then salt what you eat, don’t salt what you freeze (salt later). When instead of salt you use miso paste it tastes much fuller, but that is a different dish. I often use this consommé to boil rice: I love it! Improves paella a lot too.
My general method for protein soup/stew is as follows:
Break down the animal parts, separating meat from bones.
Sear everything in the soup vessel to generate a fond.
Put the bones and veggy scraps in the instant pot to get a stock going.
Deglaze the soup vessel, sautee aromatics, braise the protein. Reserve the protein.
Run the finished stock through a sieve and cool to facilitate fat-skimming, more or less depending on the type of stock.
Pour the stock into the soup vessel. Turn stock into soup in whichever way is delicious.
The protein can either go back into the soup immediately before serving or it can be finished in some other way and served on the side.
This way I get all the flavor from the bones without any worry about overcooking. I also don’t have to worry about a) serving bone-in meat in a soup which is annoying as hell to eat or b) hot meat from hot bones just before serving, which is also annoying as hell.
Maybe I’m a little confused, but when I make my stock with the meat, I don’t serve it in the soup, either. Stock-making meat is separate from the meat that is used in the finished soup. Whatever is used for stock/broth is thrown away or to the dog at the end.
Am I the only one who skims the scum when making chicken soup/stock? I do it because that’s what my mother did. Am I wasting my time? The stuff I pull off looks pretty gnarly and I do it for maybe the first 10 minutes of the simmer.
I usually start with thigh/drumstick quarters because that’s the cheapest.
I save carcasses from roast chickens and occasionally either buy a broiler hen or some raw carcasses from the supermarket to make chicken stock.Add onions/celery/carrots and cook in the slow cooker. When it’s finished, I discard the veges, separate the useful meat from the bones, and turn into soup with grated veges and soup mix (pulses, pearl barley, lentils etc). It makes great soup for winter.
I keep stock bones and other discards in the freezer for this purpose, even if it annoys my wife.
I also make a lamb puttanesca - I start with a leg of lamb roughly cubed, tomato (either frozen from the garden or a couple of cans of tinned), garlic, herbs and a bottle of cheap red wine. I throw in as many lamb bones as I can find in the freezer (from boned-out BBQ lamb, or from roast legs) to intensify the flavour, and 3-4 cups of mirepoix. All in the slow cooker for a day, pull out the bones and discard, take the meat out and whiz the sauce to a thick gravy, toss the meat back in with sliced olives. Serve with creamy polenta or pasta. It’s the extra bones that give the right level of unctuousness to the sauce.
That is what I meant when I wrote scoop the foam off, you expressed it much clearer. Scum, I must remember that word. I believe it is good to do it too, I consider it a kind of mechanical fining, like in wine and beer, but easier.
When i cook it on the stove, i do this. When i cook it in the instant pot, i obviously don’t skim the scum as it comes, but i do remove most of it when i skim off the fat.
Yep, I (almost) always skim when doing it on the stovetop. For skimming the fat, I leave the stock in the fridge overnight (or outside if the weather is below about 38F) and wait for the fat to solidify on top, where it is removable as one hardened slab (well, it’ll usually break in a couple pieces, but you have a nice, handy puck.) This I will save for/as schmaltz when I’m feeling frugal.
I have never seen chickens in a can for sale in Canada. The TV chefs always seem disgusted when asked to cook with them. But I find canned vegetables a convenience and canned tomatoes a lifesaver. I’d be willing to try it if it was a thing here.
Doesn’t seem available on Amazon.ca, but it’s available on the US site -
Although it’s probably 2-4 times the price of an uncooked organic whole chicken - so you’re paying a premium for the presumed ease-of-use / shelf/pantry staple factor. At that cost, I’d definitely buy a grocery store or Costco rotisserie bird. I’ve got plenty of emergency level pantry goodness and supplies. Although, like a lot of pre-prepped food, I bet if you popped it out, seasoned the surface and gave it 20 minutes or so in a hot over it would mitigate a great deal of the texture issues and add some additional flavor.
And it would probably work fine for stock, but what would the point be at that price point. I did notice that a large number of the comments on the item were people trying to recreate mother’s / grandmother’s old chicken-in-a-can recipe, often in a casserole. Apparently it’s salty, and falling apart tender, but there’s a lot of other options for that sort of thing at a better price point elsewhere.