Chicken stock

[smilingcat]

With chicken and turkey, you always have to start with cold water. And bring up to a soft boil gently. If you don't, the pores on the bone will close off and you won't make much stock.

Blues recipe is pretty good. (I'm sorry blue but I would leave out the liver. Gizzard fine heart fine but not liver.)

Waiting for the stock to cool:

Healthcode for restaurant and NFS guideline is 4 hours in the danger zone. (danger zone keeps changing from 45F - 130/145F??) I'll worry about it when I have to renew my safety certification...

You do not want to put hot stock pot in your home fridge. The compressor can't take the load to cool all the hot stock, not to mention, you'll heat up the surrounding food.

The easiest trick for home is take the stock pot to the sink, fill the sink with cold water and put the hot pot in the cold water. Give it a cold water bath. you should stir the stock in the pot so that you don't have hot spot in the stock. drain the water out of the sink when the water heats up.

Repeat the process. Should only take 3 or 4 cold water bath.

even if you were to cool it quickly, the fat will always float to the top.

Never bring to a hard boil, just to a low simmer so that you can skim away all the brown gunk that comes to the surface. If you leave that in, it makes the stock taste yucky.

In addition to Blue's celery, carrots, peppercorn and onion I add bay leaf and clove. (spike the bay leaf onto a quartered onion with clove)

Bourquet Garni should be added at the last hour or two. Otherwise all that wonderful aroma and taste will disappear. French Tarragon under utilized here but I think its the bestest.

Roasting of poultry bone isn't really necessary I don't think. For basic brown stock with beef or veal, always roast and paint thin layer of tomato paste. The acid in the tomato helps to break down the bone and connective tissue.

Roasting of carrots, carmalizing of carrots helps to breakdown a carrot to develop some of the sweet flavor.

I use left over chicken (roasted chicken from Costco) left over turkey (Thanks giving day) raw bones when I butcher my own chicken etc. They all get tossed into a freezer bag untill I have enough to make about 12-16 quarts.

Shawn

[Wahine]

Thanks Shawn. Those are great tips. My soup actually turned out quite well but now I'm all pumped up to try it again.

[7rider]

Interesting stuff, Shawn.

I was always told - at least when it came to using the innards for stock for gravy - don't use the liver...it makes the broth cloudy. I guess perhaps that's why BT has cloudy stock?

Another "rule" I was always told:
Cooked turkey carcass is okay for making stock/soup, but you must use a raw chicken carcass for making chicken stock. I've always tossed out the bones after a chicken dinner. Is my "rule" an old wives' tale? Can you use a cooked chicken carcass for stock?

[smilingcat]

Interesting stuff, Shawn.

I was always told - at least when it came to using the innards for stock for gravy - don't use the liver...it makes the broth cloudy. I guess perhaps that's why BT has cloudy stock?

Another "rule" I was always told:
Cooked turkey carcass is okay for making stock/soup, but you must use a raw chicken carcass for making chicken stock. I've always tossed out the bones after a chicken dinner. Is my "rule" an old wives' tale? Can you use a cooked chicken carcass for stock?

I've used cooked chicken carcass along with raw bones. It doesn't seem to make much of difference. Only thing I've noticed is that it tends to make slightly less stock.

Oh one more thing. I freeze my stock in quart size tupper ware or in "gallon" size zip lock bag. Just don't fill it to the top. leave some extra space. Freezer burn doesn't affect the soup or if you are making some sauce. And always put a date when you made it. Last thing you want to do is use 7 month old frozen stock. 6 month is about the limit.

Another good site to visit is http://www.chef2chef.net

There you will find tons of recipes, pros discussing of their problems, ideas, menu items, serving suggestions problem solving... I go there from time to time to add my 2 cents and take out several dollars worth of advice. They also love non-pros to ask questions too.

Shawn

[Wahine]

Another good site to visit is http://www.chef2chef.net

There you will find tons of recipes, pros discussing of their problems, ideas, menu items, serving suggestions problem solving... I go there from time to time to add my 2 cents and take out several dollars worth of advice. They also love non-pros to ask questions too.

Shawn

Hmmmmmmm. From the way that this is worded, I would assume that you are a pro. Am I right?

Oh, I have so many questions I've always wanted to pose to a *real* chef.

So you might not want to answer this post.

[LBTC]

Oh, I have so many questions I've always wanted to pose to a *real* chef.

So you might not want to answer this post.

LOL Just like you didn't admit that you are a PT?

H&B
~T~

[smilingcat]

I guess you could say I'm a professional cook.

I worked on a line (a line cook) not a chef, not even a sous chef, but just a line cook. That was back in my college days.

Today, I have a regular job and a side business of baking and selling cookies. And when I go insane, I would like to open a coffee house. Plan on serving light lunch, pastries, cake, petit fours... and some chocolate works.

And yes I do know how to handle my knife, make sauces, how to fix them, how to ...

And no I don't mind if you want to ask me questions. you can either post it or send me a message. And there is no such thing as a dumb question.

Shawn