A few days ago, I was at the grocery store, and noticed that there were chicken carcass bits seriously on sale. With the Chinese New Year on us, there has been a lot of chicken on sale lately, and I guess they had to get rid of the bits left from deboning. I decided to pick up about 3 lbs worth of chicken backs and make stock while dinner was cooking.
Making your own chicken stock is not as hard as it is made out to be, AND with a pressure cooker, it is even easier, and faster. I like using the backs, as it makes a more full-bodied chicken stock (the good stuff from inside the bones!!!). I also prefer to use uncooked chicken parts, rather than the remains of roasted birds, as I think the flavour is cleaner and brighter. Using the pressure cooker also results in a really clear stock .
So, in 6 easy steps… in the time it takes to make dinner…
- Unwrap the chicken parts
- Toss the parts in the pressure cooker
- Toss in some flavourful bits. For this batch, I used 2 carrots, 1 onion, and the tops off of a fennel bulb that was being roasted for dinner. Salt and pepper and 1 bay leaf.
- Cover with water, put the lid on the pressure cooker and bring up to heat.
- Cook at pressure for 30 minutes — release pressure either by letting it sit for 10 minutes or so, or run under cold water if you are in a hurry.
- Strain the bits out in a colander, cool in the fridge and skim off the fat.
The result: 13 1/2 cups of chicken stock, 1/2 of which went into the freezer and 1/2 into the fridge.
Benefits: way better tasting than canned or tetra pack chicken stock; way cheaper (this batch cost <$2.00 total); total control over things like salt and fat content.
Give it a try sometime. Dinner took about 1 hour in total to make (roasted in the oven), and the stock was all done except the refrigerating by the time dinner was ready. I used some of this to make cauliflower soup the following day.