6 easy steps to homemade chicken stock

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 .

I <3 my pressure cooker!

So, in 6 easy steps… in the time it takes to make dinner…

  1. Unwrap the chicken parts
  2. Toss the parts in the pressure cooker
  3. 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.
  4. Cover with water, put the lid on the pressure cooker and bring up to heat.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.

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