We had just celebrated Father’s Day at my folks place, and Mum made a ridiculous amount of great food (I’m sure she might be an Italian mumma in disguise!) and gave me the left over oven-cooked chicken legs. The meat was going in that risotto and the bones were to be thrown away until I realised I didn’t buy stock! So, I thought I’d make some with the bones. I didn’t have all the time usually needed for simmering stock, but I gave it a shot anyway.
If I have any bones left over from something like chicken legs or wings (unchewed of course), or even a store-bought barbeque chook carcass, I’ll make it again. It was quite easy, and it can be frozen for months. Also, it’s a lot cheaper than buying store-bought stuff – literally just cents!
You need bones – uncooked bones for a light coloured stock, cooked for a darker stock, water, some herbs and the ‘french trinity’ of vegetables – Mirepoix – Onion, Celery and Carrot. I always start off stews with these 3 vegetables, it bulks it up, giving you a good whack of your daily veg, and these vegetables release a lot of their natural sugars to sweeten up the dish.
I will give you the recipe I found in a french-standard practical cookery book from a chef course my husband did, first published in 1961. I always refer to these sort of recipe books for recipe standards like stocks and gravies. This of course, doesn’t mean I’ll always follow them to the T!
Ingredients
2kg raw bones (or cooked – it will just change the outcome slightly)
4 litres Water
1/2 kg vegetables – onion, celery, carrot, leek
Bouquet garni – thyme, bay leaf, parsley stalks (not the leaves, it will make it turn green!)
12 peppercorns
Method
1. Chop up the bones (I whacked mine with the blunt side of a heavy blade – seemed to work the best), remove any fat or marrow (I left mine in – It worked fine, just skim off the fat that rises to the top. It may not last as long with the fat in though.)
2. Place in a stock pot, add the cold water and bring to the boil.
3. If the scum is dirty then blanch and wash off the bones, recover with cold water and re-boil
4. Skim (the foamy stuff on the surface), wipe round side of the pot and simmer gently
5. Add the washed, peeled , whole vegetables, bouquet garni and peppercorns
6. Simmer 6-8 hours. Skim and strain
During the cooking a certain amount of evaporation must take place, therefore add 1/2 litre cold water just before boiling point is reached. This will also help to throw the scum to the surface and make it easier to skim
I made only about a quarter of this amount, and didn’t add the leek or the bay leaf. I know! Blasphemy! But it’s always good to work with what you’ve got.
Recipe adapted from ‘Practical Cookery’ Victor Ceserani & Ronald Kinton. pg 91. 1990.
Awesome! I made a stock with roasted rabbit bones a while back. It was my first attempt at homemade stock and has, as is often the case I suspect, turned me into an insufferable stock snob.