Chicken Stock from the Sunday Roast Carcass

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large stockpot, 5 litres or bigger
• •Fine-mesh sieve
• •Ladle
• •Storage tubs or containers for freezing

Instructions

1. 1

   Break down the carcass

   Pull the carcass apart with your hands. Don't be precious about it. Crack the ribcage, snap the backbone, tear the legs from the body if they're still attached. You want everything broken down enough to fit into the pot and sit below the waterline. Any scraps of skin, the wing tips, the bits of meat nobody bothered with at dinner, all of it goes in. Scrape the roasting tin too. Those sticky brown bits at the bottom are the whole reason this stock will taste of something.

   If the roasting tin has a pool of fat and jelly left behind, tip the lot in. The jelly is pure flavour. The fat will rise to the top later and you can lift it off then.
2. 2

   Into the pot

   Put the broken carcass in a large stockpot with the onion, carrots, celery, leek top if you have one, the halved garlic, bay leaves, parsley stalks, peppercorns and salt. No need to peel the onion. The skin adds colour and it's all getting strained out anyway. Cover everything with cold water by a couple of inches. Cold, not hot. You want the flavour to draw out slowly, not seize up.

3. 3

   Bring it up slowly

   Set the pot over a medium heat and bring it to a bare simmer. This shouldn't be a rolling boil, ever. A boiled stock goes cloudy and tastes thin. You want the surface barely trembling, the occasional lazy bubble breaking through. When the first scum rises, skim it off with a spoon and discard. After that, leave it alone.

   Trust your nose. Once the kitchen starts to smell properly of chicken and bay, you know it's doing what it's supposed to. That smell is the whole point of a Monday morning.
4. 4

   Let it go

   Three hours, give or take. Lid slightly ajar. Check on it now and again, skim if you need to, top up with a little hot water if the level drops below the bones. Otherwise, leave it alone and get on with your morning. Read the paper. Write a letter. The stock doesn't need supervising, it needs patience.

   You can push it to four hours if you like, but there's a point of diminishing returns with a cooked carcass. The bones have already given up most of their flavour in the roasting. This isn't a twelve-hour bone broth. It's a gentle, honest stock and three hours is plenty.
5. 5

   Strain it

   Set a large sieve over a clean bowl or pot. Ladle the stock through, then tip the rest through in stages, pressing very gently on the solids with the back of the ladle. Don't mash. You want the liquid, not the pulp. Discard the bones and vegetables. They've done their job. What you're left with should be a pale, clear, golden liquid that smells like the kind of thing you want to drink straight from the ladle. Taste it. If it's underseasoned, that's fine, you'll season it again when you use it. Stock is a starting point, not a finished thing.

6. 6

   Cool and store

   Let the stock cool down on the side until it's no longer steaming, then move it to the fridge. Once it's properly cold, a layer of fat will have set on top like a pale cap. Lift it off with a spoon, or leave it there as a seal if you're freezing the stock in tubs. Underneath, if your chicken was a good one, the stock will have set to a soft jelly. That's exactly what you want. Jellied stock is the sign of a job done properly.

Chef Tips

• •The better the chicken on Sunday, the better the stock on Monday. A proper free-range bird has bones and connective tissue with flavour to spare. A cheap bird gives you a thin, pale stock that tastes of very little. This is one of the quiet arguments for spending a bit more on the Sunday roast: you're buying two meals, not one.
• •Don't be tempted to add tomato, wine, star anise, soy sauce, or any of the other things that turn up in recipes trying to make stock more interesting. A Monday chicken stock is a neutral, useful thing. Keep it plain and it will work in almost anything you cook this week. Season it when you use it, not now.
• •Freeze it in useful portions. I do a few in 500ml tubs for soups, a few in ice cube trays for deglazing pans and finishing sauces. Label them. You think you'll remember what's in the freezer, but you won't, and a mystery tub of brown liquid in February helps nobody.
• •If the stock tastes weak after straining, don't panic. Put it back on the heat and let it reduce by a third. Concentrating is always an option. Diluting isn't.

Advance Preparation

• •The stock keeps in the fridge for up to four days. If you haven't used it by then, bring it back to a simmer for a few minutes and it'll keep another two or three days.
• •Freezes beautifully for up to three months. Freeze in a mix of portion sizes: 500ml tubs for soups and risottos, ice cube trays for sauces and pan deglazes.
• •If you can't face making stock on Monday, freeze the bare carcass whole in a bag and make the stock the following weekend. It loses nothing in the waiting.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 250g)