Chicken Stock

[ojisan]

My first attempts at using a pressure cooker for chicken stock were not impressive - high pressure for 45 min. using natural release. However, when I increased the time to two hours, the result was a double-strength flavorful stock. I'm guessing that it was due to extracting flavor from the bones. FWIW I'm using a modern PC (Fissler Vitaquick), not a jiggle-top. Also, I let the natural release go for 30 min.

[paulraphael]

I like the idea of using the dark meat.

 

If I were butchering whole chickens, then yeah, I'd give up the breast (or maybe try to find some lean meat elsewhere, like the back). But if I'm buying parts? Why not just buy an extra boneless thigh? I stock up on these to cook s.v. anyway. 

 

It's cheaper, and would probably contribute a bit more flavor.

Edited September 18, 2015 by paulraphael (log)

[btbyrd]

I like the idea of using the dark meat.

 

If I were butchering whole chickens, then yeah, I'd give up the breast (or maybe try to find some lean meat elsewhere, like the back). But if I'm buying parts? Why not just buy an extra boneless thigh? I stock up on these to cook s.v. anyway. 

 

It's cheaper, and would probably contribute a bit more flavor.

 

I'm not sure it'd be more flavorful. According to Serious Eats, stock made with only chicken breast "produced the cleanest tasting stock with the most intense chicken flavor" (compared with stock made from thighs, wings, bones, or whole chickens). This is counterintuitive, but it's apparently true. What it has in flavor, though, it lacks in body and gelatin. 

[huiray]

A batch made this past weekend. Pastured free-range chicken backs & necks. Some ginger, some sea salt. Skimmed at beginning. About 7-8 hrs low simmer.

 

[huiray]

Yesterday's batch. Pastured chicken backs & necks chopped up, skimmed repeatedly. Sliced ginger, halved garlic cloves, sea salt – kind-of a "Hakka-ish" character to this batch.

 

 

As before, the chicken pieces are mostly floating at the top when still barely simmering. After the heat is shut off the pot is left undisturbed and unshaken till the chicken pieces slowly sink and drift down largely as a "connected raft" of pieces with the stray piece doing its own thing.

 

Drank several bowls of the stuff simply (and gently) scooped off from the top, with the fat being scooped off after ladling into my soup bowl. Nicely lip-coating, very satisfying to just drink it as-is. The full decant was done somewhat later.

[hummingbirdkiss]

that to me looks like a perfectly prepared stock! 

[Paul Bacino]

This is the result of two Costco carci,  oven simmered 8 hrs  @ 250F  ( usually cook at about 375-400 till just perks then turn to convection bake covered and 250F )

with carrot onion celery, Bay, pepper

 

I cool defat , the next day,  this was a result of a reduction by half

 

 

Edited November 11, 2015 by Paul Bacino (log)

[huiray]

The latest batch.

 

 

Just ginger & sea salt as flavorings this time.

I threw in a bunch of chicken feet as well this time, and also dumped the water the first time round after it had come to a bare simmer. These bones/frames were bloodier than normal, and there was a LOT of pink plus detritus & coagulated blood etc in the water. Rinsed the chicken pieces under the tap and started the simmer in a cleaned pot w/ fresh cold water. I haven't done this sorta-"fei sui" treatment for chicken pieces for stock for a while. I still did some skimming as it came to a sustained low simmer.

[patrickamory]

An old, pasture raised bird. Pressure cooked with an onion, a couple carrots, not quite enough water to cover and some celery for 2 hours plus natural release.

 

Only partially defatted. This was incredible with our Thanksgiving stuffing...

 

[huiray]

Time for a bump up here!

Today's batch. This time I used a mixture of two pastured chicken frames & 2 necks, plus a couple of stewing hens (non-pastured). All chopped up into pieces. I also gave the whole lot 3-4 whole-pot rinses w/ cold water before refilling and then bringing to a simmer. Got rid of a fair bit of the blood that way. (I like to chop lengthwise through the backbones) (I also generally don't do the "fei sui" (briefly boiling then washing) treatment with chicken). Salt, ginger.

Skimmed at beginning. Simmered for about 8 hours.

[Lisa Shock]

Here's an interesting photo. I was given some boneless, skinless thighs and asked to make chicken salad. The catch was, there weren't many (5) and I needed to serve 7 people. I usually add vegetables to the chicken salad, but this group was the picky senior citizens I cater for sometimes, and they nixed celery and all nuts. (they make me sad sometimes) Anyway, normally, I'd roast the thighs to concentrate flavor, but, I chose to poach to retain the volume and to make sure the meat remained tender -just filtered water and salt. I had a busy day, so, I pulled the thighs out when done and placed them in their own container to cool. I stuck my pot in the fridge to cool down. A few hour later, when I went to put the stock into a smaller container to freeze, I found a remarkable art deco suprprise:

 

[huiray]

6 hours ago, Lisa Shock said:

Here's an interesting photo. I was given some boneless, skinless thighs and asked to make chicken salad. The catch was, there weren't many (5) and I needed to serve 7 people. I usually add vegetables to the chicken salad, but this group was the picky senior citizens I cater for sometimes, and they nixed celery and all nuts. (they make me sad sometimes) Anyway, normally, I'd roast the thighs to concentrate flavor, but, I chose to poach to retain the volume and to make sure the meat remained tender -just filtered water and salt. I had a busy day, so, I pulled the thighs out when done and placed them in their own container to cool. I stuck my pot in the fridge to cool down. A few hour later, when I went to put the stock into a smaller container to freeze, I found a remarkable art deco suprprise:

 

https://forums.egullet.org/uploads/monthly_2016_05/stock051616b.jpg.673822484495d08f342adefe34adc5f2.jpg 

 

Neat!

 

How long did you poach the chicken for? When you poach chicken do you normally do it at constant heat (simmer) or do you bring it up to simmer then shut the heat off and let the chicken sit in the water? For how long? Interested in what others do when they "poach" chicken.

[Anna N]

The Jacques Pépin/Danny Kaye method. Tall narrow pan, 3 1/2 lb chicken, put in pan breast side first, add aromatics, water to cover by one inch, cover, bring to a boil, boil gently x 10 minutes, remove from heat let sit x 45 minutes. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I poach chicken sous vide, to pasteurization.

 

[Lisa Shock]

I threw salt into the water, then the chicken. I let it get to 165 and then just kept it there for about ten minutes, turned it off, pulled out the chicken about 10 minutes later and chilled the meat in a container and the broth in the pan. I wasn't really trying to be precise, I was just trying to get it done quickly. I probably could have done better if I had paid more attention to it. I was doing a couple of other things at the same time.

[huiray]

Thanks, all.

 

For myself I have no set way to poach chicken; it depends on what I'm making and which cuisine (European vs E/SE Asian, for example) it is in. I've done it using the constant-simmer way and the bring-to-boil-then-turn-the-heat-off way with whole chickens. Length of time depends on the size of the chicken and what kind it is. Hainanese-style chicken (equivalent to "pak cham kai" or "pak chit kai') is done either way too; and in this case lots of ginger go into the poaching stock. The b-t-b-t-t-t-h-o way is done in Chinese cuisine too.  A hard simmer/low boil vs bare simmer also matters, of course. Chicken pieces in a European-style dish I might do either half-submerged (covered; with turning over) in a flavored/herbed stock w/ or w/o wine or submerged; chicken pieces poached in broth or water which becomes soup is done completely submerged. And so on. With the whole-chicken poaching yes, the poaching liquid then becomes the "stock" for soup (e.g. in Hainanese chicken, as mentioned) and for cooking the rice. I've posted on various renditions of this in the meal threads/topics over the years. (Traditionally, in restaurants, the poaching stock would be held for poaching the next chicken, and the next, and the next...topping up as needed as it evaporated down...resulting in an eventual very flavorful stock and flavorful chickens too. The rice and soup are cooked using another chicken stock.)

[huiray]

The latest batch.

 

 

ETA: After I took off most of the (very yellow) fat on top Iadled out some of the clear stock with residual fat and drank it as-is. This is always one of the most satisfying things one can do in one's kitchen. 

 

ETA2: Had another big bowl of it, just standing there in the kitchen in front of the stove, drinking straight from the bowl. Aaahhh.

Edited June 15, 2016 by huiray (log)

[paulraphael]

I just made my 3rd batch of brown chicken stock with the pressure cooker. This is definitely the most flavorful chicken stock I've made. It was a mix of frozen carcasses, some meaty "soup bones" from the grocery, and about 750g of chicken breast bought on sale. Total yield (I'm guessing) is about 3.5L.

 

Since I'm pushing the size limits of my 10qt pressure cooker, I sous-vided the chicken breast (after grinding) 90°C for 90 minutes. Strained the resulting stock into the liquids that go into the pressure cooker. My cat is crazy about the remaining dry meat. My plan was to reserve 60g of this for the pressure cooker, to help clarify, but I forgot.

 

I roasted the carcasses and soup bones and also the mirepoix veggies (about half as much veg as I'd use in a conventional stock ... you don't lose as much of the aromatics). 

 

The liquids were the s.v. stock from the breast, deglazing liquid from the roasting, defrosted s.v. bag juices from previous meals, and water.

 

The result is dark brown, heavy on roasted flavors and aromas, with a very 3-dimensional chicken flavor. It's not clear, but not muddy or cloudy either. 

 

I think it will be aces in sauces for chicken; the question remains if it's too chickeny to use as a more all purpose brown stock.

[huiray]

Yesterday's batch.

 

After decanting (the stuff pourable without the chicken pieces falling out) through paper towels in a large metal sieve, which also served to trap (separate off, rather) much of the fat – a couple ladles of the stock, w/ some coriander leaves on top.

 

All of the final decant, with some light thumping, with dregs & sediment getting through – with retrieved/plucked off pieces of dark meat, some of the oyster nuggets from the chicken back pieces, and chicken skin; zapped in the MW to reheat. Chopped scallions. Some Maldon salt. Greatly enjoyed.

 

The fat retained by the paper towels allowed to drip through slowly into another bowl then was chilled and the fat solids taken off the residual liquid layer for other uses.

[pufin3]

I make chicken stock about four times a year.

Full disclosure: Around here I can pick up any number of old roosters which people list on sites like Kijiji for free.

They are live. Some are old 'pets' which have outlived their welcome.

So I'll pick up four old roosters. Take them to a friend who has a machine which removes all the feathers.

Cleaned well washed chilled 'parted'. Parts Into a large commercial size stock pot. Covered with cold water. About five pounds of fresh pork bones. A large handful of leeks. No onions. No other veg. No salt.

Bring just to a boil. Low simmer for a couple of hours only.

Remove all pork bones and chicken parts and leeks and discard.

Back to a very low simmer to reduce by at least half. This can take at least a day.

Make a 'raft'. Cool and carefully ladle out the clear stock.

Into fridge over night. Remove any fat on the surface.

Into Ziploc bags.

This 'mother stock' is then used every which way. Herbs/seasonings added as needed.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

2 hours ago, pufin3 said:

I make chicken stock about four times a year.

Full disclosure: Around here I can pick up any number of old roosters which people list on sites like Kijiji for free.

They are live. Some are old 'pets' which have outlived their welcome.

So I'll pick up four old roosters. Take them to a friend who has a machine which removes all the feathers.

Cleaned well washed chilled 'parted'. Parts Into a large commercial size stock pot. Covered with cold water. About five pounds of fresh pork bones. A large handful of leeks. No onions. No other veg. No salt.

Bring just to a boil. Low simmer for a couple of hours only.

Remove all pork bones and chicken parts and leeks and discard.

Back to a very low simmer to reduce by at least half. This can take at least a day.

Make a 'raft'. Cool and carefully ladle out the clear stock.

Into fridge over night. Remove any fat on the surface.

Into Ziploc bags.

This 'mother stock' is then used every which way. Herbs/seasonings added as needed.

 

I am reminded of the famous NY Times recipe, Kill Duck before Serving.

[Anna N]

@JoNorvelleWalker

 

 You shouldn't have done that.  At my age one can have too much laughter. I will leave it at that.

[rotuts]

thanks for the ref. to the Duck.  Its in my library system and Im looking forward to it.

 

this may have been mentioned up thread, I now use my InstantPot to make stock.  I just save the carcasses and use the Soup button

 

it sooooo easy.  in the past I rarely made stock of any kind, due to Lazzy-ness.  certainly not in the summer.

 

now its a year round thing when I accumulate enough Ck Parts.

[huiray]

A bowl of the latest batch of chicken stock, with some chopped scallions.

Stock made as before, decanted through paper towels lining a metal sieve; with most of the fat retained by the paper towels (and allowed to drip through slowly afterwards into a bowl). Several rice-bowls-worth of the stock happily drunk straight away standing in the kitchen, getting sticky lips; one or two bowls w/ some retrieved skin and meat afterwards; and this bowl later after rewarming the filtered stock. I think I drank about half of the stock before putting the rest away. :-)  I won't bother reducing the remainder of it and will just drink it up instead - oops, that means I need to make more real soon. :-D

Edited August 8, 2016 by huiray (log)

[johnnyd]

What happens when you use heirloom carrot in your chicken stock: