Back to Basics: Homemade Chicken Stock

Ever wander through somewhere, pick up a certain smell and immediately find yourself lost in a sea of memories? You’re not alone. The human brain’s anatomy is designed to link your sense of smell to the parts of your brain linked with memory (Interesting read http://ift.tt/1B7IijT). For me, the smell of chicken stock immediately reminds me of winter at mom’s house. Mom makes some of the best chicken noodle soup out there and always makes her own chicken stock from scratch. The smell of it bubbling away brings me back to memories of slurping away at soup over dinner or the one time I ate 7 bowls of it in one sitting and instantly cured the bronchitis I had been suffering from. Knowing how to make your own stock will help you waste fewer food scraps, improve the depth of flavor in any dish you’re making, fill you with a sense of self-sufficiency and fill your home with some wonderful smells.

Ingredients:

Bones from two chickens (you can keep these bones in the freezer and then use them when you’re ready to make stock) 6 cups water 1 cup mini carrots Bulb and tops from one bunch of celery 1/2 onion, with the skin on 5 small cloves of garlic, smashed with the skin on 2 bay leaves 10 whole black peppercorns 1 teaspoon salt 4 sprigs fresh rosemary 10 springs fresh thyme 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Roast chicken bones in a shallow glass baking dish with a drizzle of olive oil sprinkle of salt and pepper for a half hour.

2. Remove bones and place them into a large soup pot. Deglaze your baking pan with 1 cup of the water, scraping off any of the tibdits that the bones left behind. Add that water to the bones in the soup pot.

3. Add remaining 5 cups of water and all the other ingredients to the soup pot. Stir to combine. Cover and increase heat to high.

4. Bring stock to a boil then reduce to a simmer and simmer for one hour, stirring occasionally and skimming off foam that forms on top.

5. After the stock has simmered, pass it through a fine-mesh strainer then through a cheesecloth-lined strainer. Double fold the cheesecloth to make sure it does its job.

6. Freeze or store your gorgeous stock in the fridge. Enjoy!

Recipe with photos here: http://ift.tt/2kbicsk

bon appetit