A cooking week based on chicken and stock

[&roid]

Over the past few months I've become a bit slack at cooking properly during the week. Through a mixture of laziness and being horrendously busy at work I was only cooking decent food once or twice a week. This was starting to get me down, so last week I grasped the bull by the horns and forced myself back into making a proper weekly plan and doing most of the shopping in one go. I do this every now and again and am always so much happier when I do (I wish the lazy bit of my brain could remember this!). The slight twist this time is what made me decide to write this post:

I love having homemade stock to hand and even bought a MASSIVE stock pan a couple of years ago to make big batches. Even so what I always find is that I make up a batch, go through the whole straining, sometimes clarifying, reducing, freezing process and then just burn through it all in a few weeks. I got a pressure cooker last year and have made a few stocks in it, I've always been very very impressed by them - definitely far tastier than even my best slow simmered ones were. So last week I decided to try and build a pressure cooked stock into my weekly routine - it worked brilliantly, so much so that I'm doing it again this week. It was such a success I thought I'd post about what I'd done in case there are any other lazy midweek cooks out there who find it useful.

Day 1 (Monday for me) - Dinner tonight is a simple roast chicken with bread and salad. My absolute favourite way to do roast chicken is following Thomas Keller's recipe from Bouchon, it is so so simple but has never failed to give me tasty, succulent chicken, it's even better that it's quicker than my old way of doing it too! The "recipe" is so simple I'll detail it here: I just take a smallish chicken (about 1.4kg/3lb works best for me), let it come up to room temp for an hour or so, sprinkle it liberally (and I mean liberally!) with coarse salt then roast it in a very hot oven (230C/450F) for around 45 minutes. While it's resting (for a good 15 minutes) I make a sauce using herb infused white wine vinegar and a small amount of chicken stock from the pan juices.

When we've fought over the oysters and picked all the meat off the carcass I break what's left up a bit and pop it back in a 230C oven to brown a bit more. I chop up an onion, half a carrot and a couple of celery sticks and get them a bit coloured in the pressure cooker then chuck in the browned chicken carcass and cover it with cold water. 2 hours at full pressure gives about 3 litres of really deeply chicken-y stock. Last week I actually added a couple of rashers of smoked bacon which was great too.

I'm now set up for the week, I've got enough stock to do a soup and maybe a risotto and I've guaranteed myself three really tasty meals without having to commit hours and hours of slaving or having 20 litres of stock simmering away for days (possible *slight* exaggeration!) on end, losing most of its flavour into my extractor, admittedly the kitchen doesn't smell as nice as it used to with the traditional stock method but the food tastes a damn sight better!

Day 2 - using a good helping of last night's stock I made a great italian soup, some fried onion, garlic, celery and carrot, a couple of bay leaves, some cannellini beans, a few tinned tomatoes and some fresh herbs all cooked in 30-40 minutes and tasting great. The bacon in the stock really helped with the flavour of this soup I think, one of the best minestrones I've made.

Day 3 - Homemade pizza day, not having a wood burning oven I've spent ages trying to get the best pizza I could, my stand out favourite method is this one from Serious Eats. I have a big black iron skillet which I get nice and hot on the gas while my broiler is getting up to temperature, I shape my dough and lay it in the skillet, sauce it quickly and put it under the broiler, once it's nice and charred on top I simply move back to the cooktop to finish the bottom. Quicker and better than my old method of using a pizza stone, definitely the nearest I've got to "proper" pizza at home.

Just thought I'd throw this one in here even though it doesn't have much to do with my pressure cooked stock - it's just so good!

Day 4 - Risotto made with the stock let down with some water, not much to say about this one, just made in the normal way but, wow, was it tasty.

I liked it so much last week I'm doing the same again today, chicken will be roasting in a couple of hours then the stock will be used to make the Cannellini bean and leek soup with chilli oil from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's Veg book. I've not tried this yet but I suspect it will be superb using the stock. I'd always let myself believe that I needed several chicken carcasses to get any useful amount of stock but with this new pressure cooked variety it's obvious that a single bird will do.

[Shalmanese]

Why not roast 2 chickens next week so you have some leftover cooked chicken meat for chicken salad/chicken soup etc. as well?

[Darienne]

Making more than enough for one meal and freezing is how we have always lived. Most stuff freezes very well, even without proper freezing equipment, and although I wouldn't serve defrosted stuff to guests, it works well for family. (And some stuff even works with guests. )

[TeakettleSlim]

Thank you, &roid! I have a chicken carcass sitting in my fridge right now that really needs something done with it. Had previously seen references to the pressure cooker method, but no details. My pressure cooker is a gigantic canning cooker, though (I used to make batches of stock to can, but in the current house I haven't got anywhere to store the jars, so that project is on hold). Wonder if covering the carcass with water would lead to there being too much water? About how much water would you say you use? I suppose I could break up the carcass a bit so it won't stick up out of the water too much. Hmm.

[&roid]

I think as long as the pan isnt so big that the bottom isn't even covered by your carcass/veg it would be ok to fill it until the bones are just covered. I used about 2-3litres for the one carcass plus veg/bacon. Yesterday was a different (less flavourful) chicken and I didn't brown the bones as much but the stock is still pretty good. I guess the worst thing that happens if the pan is too big and you find it a bit dilute is you reduce it down. Give it a go.

[TeakettleSlim]

Okay, I'm about to try it! Was looking at my pressure canner manual, though, and for chicken stock it advises a mere 10 minutes at 15 lbs pressure. &roid reports having cooked it 2 hours. I sense a disparity here. Any further guidelines on how long I should pressurecook it? I could always open it up after it cooks 10 minutes and see wht I've got, but the cool down time with the huge cooker is not insignificant.

[heidih]

Okay, I'm about to try it! Was looking at my pressure canner manual, though, and for chicken stock it advises a mere 10 minutes at 15 lbs pressure. &roid reports having cooked it 2 hours. I sense a disparity here. Any further guidelines on how long I should pressurecook it? I could always open it up after it cooks 10 minutes and see wht I've got, but the cool down time with the huge cooker is not insignificant.

We have topics on pressure cooked stock here and here.

[TeakettleSlim]

Thank you, Heidi! I had searched, but not hard enough, it would seem.