Homemade Chicken Stock: How I Became a Chicken Carcasse Coveter

My sisters walked into the kitchen a little after noon today, inquiring about a delicious smell wafting throughout the house. "Are you making a turkey? A chicken? For lunch? What's the occasion?"



Dinners during our holiday week are our big meals. Lunchtime is usually spent scavenging for leftovers. But today, we had a roasted chicken. It was delicious, but I had an ulterior motive, more sinister than feeding my brood.



I was after the chicken carcasse. I sound so calculating, almost like a serial killer, but it's what it's come to.



As of late, I've become addicted to the cheap luxury of homemade chicken stock. I use it in so many ways: to boil the kids' noodles, as a base for vegetable soup, and to make little sauces for any meat I pan sear. I love seeing that big container of stock in the fridge (and having bags of stock ice cubes stashed in the freezer as well), it's so promising, so inspiring.

As I make a roasted chicken most weeks, the fresh stock is really no added expense. And you won't believe how easy it is to make.



Homemade Chicken Stock

Ingredients:

1 Chicken Carcasse

2 carrots, peeled and chopped



1/2 an onion, chopped



2 celery stalks, chopped

After cutting off the meat to serve it to Steve and the kids, I simply throw the bare carcasse into a pot instead of in the garbage. 
Then I add two peeled and chopped carrots, half a chopped onion and two chopped celery stalks. 
I fill the pot with water, give it a good boil for an hour or so, and my stock is good to go. 
It's a good idea to strain it before transferring it to a Tupperware.
It will keep in your fridge for about a week. In the freezer for a couple of months.




Go ahead, try it next time. But be careful, you'll soon be coveting carcasses just like me. Once you've experienced the clean taste of your own homemade stock, you'll be looking differently at the supermarket stuff.