I had a lovely roast chicken recently and, like any conscientious cook, I wanted to make stock from the leftovers. But there’s nothing more annoying than a freezer full of huge bags of stock that you'll never manage to use, especially if you just want a little bit and you end up having to defrost an entire ocean! So I used this clever trick to save myself some freezer space and a lot of hassle. Chicken stock might not sound like the most exciting of recipes, but I can promise you that from now on, you’ll be using this trick every time you roast a chicken.
Essentially, once the stock is ready you remove the flavourings and reduce it to a strongly flavoured syrup, then freeze it in an ice cube mould. When you need some, you just pop a cube into boiling water, and you’ve got instant stock. It’s the same principle used in making industrial stock cubes, except that they dehydrate the original stock rather than reducing it, so that it forms a dry powder rather than a syrup, and can be pressed into cubes to be kept in your cupboard. And, of course, they put a lot more artificial flavours and colours into their mixture, whereas yours will be completely homemade; nothing will go into it that you didn’t put there yourself.
I’ve included the basic method for making stock below, as well as a more detailed explanation of the reduction and freezing. If you have your own favourite method, or flavourings you like to add which I haven’t included, just change the recipe to suit you. The reduction and freezing method works for other chicken, fish and veal stocks too.
I’ve browned the chicken bones in this recipe, because I prefer the taste. This is technically known as a brown chicken stock; if you want to use the stock in light chicken, fish or vegetable dishes, you might prefer to make a white chicken stock, which uses the same method but without roasting the bones. White chicken stock tastes lighter and a little less rich.
Enough chatter now, and on to a recipe.
Chicken stock cubes
Ingredients
1 chicken carcass, meat removed
1 carrot
1 onion
1 celery stem
10 black peppercorns
Bay leaf
Sprig of thyme
A parsley stem
Water
Method
Put the bones in the oven at 180° for around 10 or 15 minutes, or until they begin to brown up a bit.
Peel and roughly chop the carrot and onion, and wash and roughly chop the celery. Tie the herbs together with a piece of white, natural fibre string.
Pop the chicken in a large pan with all the vegetables, herbs and peppercorns. Cover with water so it comes to about 1-2cm over the highest point of the chicken.
Bring the pan to the boil. As it heats up you’ll need a bowl of cold water and a spoon. Scum and fat will rise to the surface as the liquid comes to the boil; carefully skim all of this off with the spoon, cleaning it in the cold water if necessary.
Once the liquid is boiling and there is no more scum rising, turn the heat down to a gentle simmer and allow to bubble quietly away for around 2 hours, and not more than three.
Once the stock is ready (give it a taste if you’re not sure – if you don’t think the flavour is strong enough, you can leave it to simmer a bit longer), drain out all the veg and chicken. RESERVE THE REMAINING LIQUID – you wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve poured perfectly good stock down the sink!
Return the liquid to the pan and put it back on the heat. Bring it to a gentle boil and reduce it by about ¾ (reducing, for anyone who doesn’t know, is when you boil a liquid until the water starts to boil away and it reduces in volume).
This is a bit of a subjective bit. You need to taste your reduced mixture, and it should taste too strong – imagine the taste you want in your stock, and reduce the mixture until it is 3-4 times stronger than that.
When you’ve reached your desired strength, pour the mixture into an ice cube mould and pop it in the freezer.
Finally, when you want some stock just pop out a couple of cubes and stir into some boiling water – use about 300-400ml per cube, or just taste it and bring it to the strength you want.
I do hope you get a lot of use out of this recipe, it really is a keeper. Enjoy!
