Sum is greater than the parts No comments yet

We are proponents of using the whole animal when the decision is made to slaughter.  Like many folks this wasn’t something we were exactly used to to start with.  Slaughtering our own chickens last year defintely encouraged us to start doing a little more research in to the uses of “offal” (or giblets in the case of chickens).  This will be at least a two part post with the first being mine…

Chicken stock:

Necks and feet make particularly unctuous chicken stock when combined with your left over cooked carcasses or raw backbones from parting out a whole chicken.  (Heads can also be used in stock making.)

The best trick I’ve learned with regards to homemade stock is to start a freezer bag for vegetable ends and pieces and add scraps to the bag as you make other meals.  Your vegetable bag can contain: “butts” of celery, carrots, and onions, onion/leek/shallot skins, herb stems, garlic pieces, and/or any other vegetable or herb pieces that you would enjoy flavoring your stock.  It’s a great way to use those vegetables that aren’t appealing enough to go on the plate but are far from spoiled.  I also start freezer bags for chicken carcasses and pieces, as well as separate bags for fish/seafood  and beef.  (When buying whole seafood make sure to ask for the heads, backbones, and tails when having them filleted.  There is loads of flavor in there still.)

When you acquire enough material, normally a gallon freezer bag is a good amount, of vegetables and/or meat you are ready to make stock.

Add to a large stock pot, necks, feet, carcasses (broken up as best possible) along with a few carrots, onions, and celery OR your vegetable scraps bag (frozen is fine) along with 5-15 peppercorns, 1 or 2 bay leaves, and small amount of salt.  Add enough water to cover the material by several inches.  If you prefer a lighter stock, add more water.  If you want a denser stock I recommend reducing it further, see the next part about “demi-glace”, rather than using too little water.  Bring to a boil, and then reduce to a simmer.  Simmer uncovered, on the stove top or wood stove for as many hours as you have patience for, or a minimum of 1 hour.  Strain and discard the solids.  You will need to either skim the fat from the stock for immediate use or cool the stock and remove the solidified fat (easier).  We freeze our stock in vacuum sealed bags for later use.  Be aware that your homemade stock will likely cool to a gelatinous consistency.  This is due to the actual gelatin in the carcasses and feet in particular.  It will add a body and depth to your stock that you’ll never get out of canned broth or bouillon cubes.  We prefer to under salt our stock so we do not risk it becoming too salty as it reduces and instead salt the stock in its final application.

A note on chicken feet:  chicken feet have to be “declawed” and the skin removed before cooking.  You can normally tell if this has been done if the feet are a pale, creamy color instead of a yellow or grey/brown color.  Scalding the feet will allow the skin to be peeled off pretty easily.  The claws have an exterior claw kind of like a cap that can be removed by pulling the wrong direction on the claw.  This also helps insure that the feet are clean and no dirt remains.

Chicken “Demi-glace”:

To maximize storage space and for more versatility, we simmer our stock for a couple hours, strain and discard the solids as before, and then return the stock to a simmer on the stove top to reduce further to create a “demi-glace”.  Once reduced to our liking, we cool to remove the solidified fat, reheat to liquefy, and pour the demi-glace into silicon ice cube trays (the solid plastic ones are hard to get the sauce back out of once frozen).  We freeze the trays, and once frozen, remove the cubes to a zip top freezer bag.  The demi-glace can be “rehydrated” to a stock by adding water, or can make a wonderful quick sauce or rich gravy as needed.  The cubes make it very easy to grab just a little bit at a time.