Freezer Chicken Stock

It's Always Freezer Season

This is a good, basic chicken stock. It doesn't cook very long, though you could easily let it simmer longer without any ill effects. Following the recipe pretty closely, mine didn't get as jiggly as it usually does, but I will admit I never actually time stocks when I make them at other times. They just simmer until I decide they're done.

I do highly recommend keeping a zip top bag in the freezer and filling it with any bits of raw chicken that you end up trimming off before you cook it. Wing tips, back bones, and necks make up the bulk of mine, but whenever I want boneless chicken thighs with the skin on, the bones go in there too. I don't go so far as to keep vegetable skins or anything like that, but it makes sense to use as much of the chicken as you can.

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[00:00]: foreign
[00:05]: hello and welcome to cooking the books
[00:07]: with Heather today we're going to be
[00:09]: making sort of a base recipe that we
[00:11]: need to make the actual dish that we
[00:14]: want to make next week
[00:17]: we are going to be making freezer
[00:19]: chicken stock from Ashley christensen's
[00:22]: it's always freezer season
[00:24]: so I make chicken stock all the time
[00:27]: it's really simple this is just sort of
[00:30]: a throw it together and cook it kind of
[00:34]: thing but I did follow her measurements
[00:39]: mostly
[00:40]: so in this pot I have
[00:43]: bits of chicken
[00:45]: that uh
[00:48]: I store in the freezer so when I have
[00:51]: chicken wings and I take the little bits
[00:53]: off some of it's still frozen so I take
[00:55]: the the tips off those are great for
[00:58]: chicken stock when I spatch a
[01:01]: chicken I throw the backbone in the
[01:03]: freezer there are necks
[01:06]: and uh oh and when I make
[01:10]: chicken thighs that I want boneless but
[01:14]: skin on kind of have to do that myself
[01:16]: so I throw the bones in the bag and all
[01:19]: of this is ready to make chicken stock
[01:23]: I'm supposed to be able to put eight
[01:26]: quarts of water in here after I put
[01:28]: everything else in here and this is an
[01:30]: eight quart pot
[01:31]: so that's not going to happen because
[01:33]: there's a lot of volume taken up by the
[01:37]: chicken I think this is slightly less
[01:39]: even than she says but it'll be fine
[01:43]: um
[01:44]: we're starting with supposedly eight
[01:46]: quarts of water but we're supposed to
[01:47]: end up with eight cups because we're
[01:49]: going to reduce it and reduce it
[01:52]: so I'm not too worried about it
[01:54]: but the only things we really need to
[01:57]: add here we have some
[01:59]: alliums leeks onions garlic green onions
[02:06]: shallots I have some shallot some yellow
[02:09]: onion and a few cloves of garlic in here
[02:15]: I usually take the skins off you do not
[02:19]: have to do that I've definitely seen
[02:21]: people use the Skins
[02:24]: um and sometimes they save them for
[02:25]: stock
[02:27]: I've seen way too many like bits with
[02:30]: mold on it that I don't like to do that
[02:33]: but I mean I didn't worry about you know
[02:35]: there's a little bit of skin there I
[02:37]: didn't worry too much about that and
[02:39]: they're all just sort of roughly cut up
[02:41]: into chunks
[02:44]: um and then we have
[02:47]: aromatic vegetables is what she calls
[02:49]: this she says uh
[02:51]: carrots celery herbs you could throw
[02:54]: some parsley or something in here if you
[02:56]: were doing something that you wanted to
[02:59]: have a specific flavor profile where you
[03:02]: wanted to be cilantro or Dill you could
[03:04]: do that I'm just staying very simple
[03:08]: here so
[03:10]: got some carrots and some celery
[03:13]: and now we cover it with water
[03:19]: I will see how much I'm I actually can
[03:22]: get in here but uh I'll let you know in
[03:25]: just a second
[03:27]: I'm gonna stop there
[03:29]: it's gonna be very heavy to take this to
[03:31]: the stove but this is four and three
[03:35]: quarters ish quartz that's all I could
[03:37]: fit into my eight quart stock pot
[03:41]: I'm not too worried about that I think
[03:42]: it'll be just fine but we're also we're
[03:44]: not putting any salt or pepper in here
[03:47]: although you could she says anything
[03:48]: else you want to throw in you could
[03:49]: throw in a bay leaf if you wanted you
[03:51]: could throw in whole peppercorns I do
[03:53]: that
[03:54]: um just anything that you have on hand
[03:57]: that you want to help flavor your stock
[03:60]: you can throw in
[04:02]: but now everything is super easy we're
[04:05]: going to bring this to a boil reduce it
[04:06]: to a simmer leave the lid off no lid
[04:10]: because we want it to reduce once it
[04:13]: comes to a simmer we're going to let it
[04:14]: simmer gently for 90 minutes
[04:20]: so we'll be back in a couple hours
[04:21]: probably for it to come up to a boil and
[04:25]: then reduce to a simmer and boil for 90
[04:27]: minutes it'll take us probably almost
[04:28]: two hours for that so
[04:30]: uh uh we'll show you what we do
[04:33]: after that
[04:35]: okay so it has it's starting to come to
[04:37]: a boil and you can see it's got this
[04:39]: sort of scummy stuff on top
[04:41]: and the recipe says to
[04:44]: take that off so I'm going to take off
[04:46]: as much as I can really
[04:49]: it doesn't
[04:50]: bother me and at the end it won't won't
[04:53]: look like scum I assume it's just
[04:56]: proteins
[04:58]: uh
[04:60]: floating to the surface but I've got a
[05:03]: paper towel on a plate
[05:05]: just to hold it
[05:07]: try not to get any of the
[05:11]: onions or bits of veggies
[05:14]: I'll get some of this off
[05:18]: and if I see a lot I might
[05:21]: take more off at other times but
[05:25]: that's all we're doing right now and
[05:27]: then I will turn it down to a simmer
[05:30]: this has been going for almost 90 full
[05:33]: minutes at this you know gentle simmer
[05:35]: and it has barely so I finished I put
[05:39]: the rest of the fifth quart of water in
[05:41]: there but I haven't added any more and
[05:43]: it is not even down to what I expect for
[05:46]: quarts of water to be based on you know
[05:49]: when I added it where it was on the pan
[05:53]: um
[05:53]: and four quarts would have been where it
[05:55]: was if we had started with eight so I'm
[05:58]: going to let it go for probably an extra
[05:60]: 30 minutes I don't think you can go
[06:03]: wrong at this point with even like
[06:07]: uh four hours or so just letting it go
[06:11]: but uh I have other things to do so I'm
[06:14]: going to
[06:15]: wait an extra 30 minutes and see how it
[06:19]: is at that point
[06:20]: okay so now we are about where I think
[06:23]: four quarts should be with all the
[06:26]: solids and I'm going to strain it
[06:31]: into this bowl through the strainer and
[06:34]: discard all of the solids and then it's
[06:37]: going to go back in here
[06:40]: to
[06:41]: Reduce by half
[06:44]: so put it back in
[06:48]: reduce it
[06:50]: by half I think she says a about another
[06:53]: 45 minutes but we'll let you know how
[06:57]: long it takes us
[07:00]: so I
[07:02]: actually ended up boiling my or
[07:05]: simmering my stock after I strained it
[07:08]: for 90 minutes which was twice the
[07:10]: amount of time that she says because it
[07:13]: certainly was not
[07:14]: down to eight cups of stock before that
[07:19]: but now it is and that was just about
[07:21]: perfect
[07:23]: so I have
[07:25]: my stock cooling here
[07:27]: says to cool it for about until it's
[07:30]: about 70 degrees before you put it in
[07:33]: the refrigerator to cool and then the
[07:35]: freezer
[07:36]: so I'm going to leave it like this
[07:39]: um
[07:40]: to cool
[07:42]: I like this particular you guys can't
[07:45]: see it but this is a
[07:49]: uh measuring cup that also pours from
[07:53]: the bottom so the fat floats up and you
[07:55]: can pour off the defatted broth from the
[07:58]: bottom
[07:60]: um so I will
[08:02]: pour off this and then pour this in
[08:04]: there and uh
[08:06]: then we'll have our defatted broth
[08:09]: because the fat just doesn't really have
[08:11]: much flavor and it's um
[08:15]: in the it will float to the top and
[08:18]: anyway we don't need that part
[08:21]: so the way I am going to store it
[08:26]: first the amount I need for my recipe is
[08:29]: about three cups so I'm gonna put that
[08:31]: in this and so
[08:33]: um this is just a plastic takeout
[08:35]: container
[08:37]: um if you get soup at a Chinese
[08:38]: restaurant or probably a lot of places
[08:41]: you get these and I'm going to put this
[08:43]: in the refrigerator maybe the freezer
[08:45]: depending on when I think I'm going to
[08:46]: make mine make my recipe for that but
[08:51]: for everything else I like to have
[08:53]: relatively small amounts of stock
[08:54]: because sometimes I only need
[08:57]: like a cup or a half a cup
[08:59]: and you can't really take that out of
[09:04]: quart of stock very easily without
[09:06]: defrosting the whole thing so what I'm
[09:08]: going to do is I have these large ice
[09:11]: cubes
[09:12]: um that generally these ones I use for
[09:14]: food we have other ones that we only use
[09:16]: for ice but this is approximately half a
[09:21]: cup each so I'm going to pour them in
[09:23]: here freeze them and then pop them out
[09:26]: into a gallon size freezer bag
[09:30]: and that's it
[09:32]: um and and we'll have you know a freezer
[09:34]: bag full of stock cubes that I can use
[09:39]: for whatever I need
[09:41]: um
[09:42]: so we probably won't have any further
[09:45]: information or or
[09:48]: review of this I mean it looks like good
[09:50]: stock it smells delicious I think we
[09:53]: probably could have boiled it longer in
[09:55]: the beginning most recipes that I see
[09:58]: online are like four to six hours and as
[10:01]: long as you're not doing something
[10:02]: that's that can get really bitter like a
[10:04]: a green like leeks I've found if you
[10:07]: boil them way too long can make your
[10:09]: stock bitter
[10:10]: that would be fine here so you could do
[10:13]: four to six hours no problem boil it as
[10:15]: long as you
[10:16]: want make sure it doesn't
[10:19]: um
[10:20]: boil out too much and keep keep the uh
[10:24]: the solids covered while you're boiling
[10:26]: it while you're simmering it but
[10:29]: um
[10:30]: yeah so we're gonna cool this
[10:32]: and put these in here
[10:34]: before they're fully cool because if we
[10:37]: did this right
[10:38]: these will be gelatin when they're cool
[10:41]: they will be
[10:42]: almost solid when it's in the
[10:45]: refrigerator so we need to go ahead and
[10:47]: put it in these things before it gets
[10:50]: that cold so I'm gonna have to do that
[10:51]: tonight
[10:53]: and
[10:54]: stay tuned to see what we use this for
[10:57]: probably next week and if you enjoyed
[10:60]: watching me make this please give me a
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[11:03]: with your friends and come back and
[11:06]: watch me make something with this next
[11:09]: week
[11:11]: foreign