Homemade Chicken Stock : Tutorial

We go through a lot of chicken stock at our house.  It seems that most dishes I make call for a couple of cups.  I used to use the pasty chicken flavored soup base, and I'll still do that in a pinch, but for the past year or so, I've tried to keep our downstairs freezer packed with homemade stock and baguettes.  We eat a lot of bread also, but I digress.  That is a post for another time.

This is a weekend project for me and I do it whenever we are running low.  This recipe, from The Barefoot Contessa makes roughly 16 to 20 cups of stock. I usually follow the recipe, except I often omit the turnips, just because they seem to be hard to find in my neck of the woods.

To begin, you will need one very large pot, or two smaller ones.  These are the two 10 quart stockpots that I use.

I use three 5 pound roasting chickens for the stock.

You will also need a healthy compliment of vegetables and herbs.  I use 3 large onions, 6 carrots, 4 stalks of celery, a bunch of parsley, thyme and dill and a head of garlic.  This will all go into the pot(s).

The onions need to be quartered, with their skin on, and divided between the two pots.

Leave the skin on the carrots, halve them and divide them between the two pots.

Leaving the leaves on the celery, cut into the thirds and divide between the two pots.

Cut the head of garlic cloves in half and drop one into each pot. Split the dill, parsley and thyme in half and drop into each pot. 

Now for the tricky part.  You need to cut one of those chickens in half.  Take a big knife and cut it right down the center.

Lay one and a half chickens on top of the vegetables and herbs in each of the pots

and add 3 1/2 quarts of water to each pot.

Finally, add 1 tablespoon of Kosher salt and 1 teaspoon of whole black peppercorns to each pot.  Turn on the heat and let it simmer for four hours.

After the allotted time, stain the liquid through a colander or sieve to separate the solids from the stock.

Put all the stock back in one pot and all the chicken back in the second and place in the refrigerator over night.

When you wake up, all the fat should have congealed on the top of the nice rich broth.

Skim the fat off the top

and then divide the stock into 1 cup portions and store in quart sized freezer bags.

If you get most of the air out of the bags, they will lay nice and flat and freeze nicely.  Label the bags with the contents and date.

The second stockpot should be full of nicely cooled chicken.

Remove the meat from the bones,

measure into 8 oz portions

and place in quart size freezer bags.

Label the bags with the contents and date.  This meat is good for pasta, sandwiches, chicken pot pie or anything else you can come up with.  Enjoy!

Roasting Peppers : Tutorial

I started to post a pasta recipe that used red roasted peppers, and realized, since the roasting itself is so much fun, that it might be best to post a precursor tutorial on the roasting bell peppers and then follow up with some recipes to use up the finished product.

When I roast peppers, I put them directly on the burner of our cooktop.

However, if you don't have a gas cooktop, you can use your grill.  Egads!  No way!  It is too cold and snowy out there right now and I have on flip flops.

Alternatively, if you don't have a gas cooktop and your grill is snowed in, you can get out your kitchen torch.

The flame on this baby will roast a pepper nicely.  Failing all that, if you must, use your broiler.  To use the broiler, cut your pepper in half, push it flat, skin side up, on a cookie sheet and scorch 'em. 

But, back to my preferred method, if you have a gas cooktop, just lay it right over the flame.  See that nice sweat building up on the top?  It is starting to roast.

When it is completely black, use your tongs (not you hands, I've tried that) to rotate it a quarter turn.  Yes, the skin on this side is actually a little bit on fire, but that won't hurt it a bit.

Keep rotating until the entire pepper is nice and black

And then pop it off the flame and seal it in a ziplock bag.  Walk away for 10 minutes, or more, and when you come back

You will have a beautiful blackened pepper

which the skin will slough right off of when you run your hands over it.

Once the skin has been removed, you can rinse it under the faucet or you can just leave a bit of the black char on there.  It will add to the flavor.

Then lay it on your cutting board and cut out the stem, pulling out the seeds with it.

Cut the pepper in half and remove any remaining seeds. 

You can roast red, yellow, green, orange or purple peppers for a bright addition to so many dishes. Tomorrow, I'll follow up with at least one recipe to use them!