Rich Dark Chicken Stock

Having a large supply of fresh chicken stock is indispensable for a good kitchen! Unfortunately, I find fresh chicken stock goes bad very quickly. You can use store bought chicken stock, and they will work when you are in a fix...but they taste and smelly metallic to me. If you absolutely must use store bought chicken stock, spruce it up a bit. Take the whole box and put it in a saucepan. Add some sliced garlic, onion, fresh rosemary, star anise, ginger, anything to give it a bit more flavor.

I usually freeze stock (whether it is chicken, fish, beef  or shrimp). I find it maintains its flavor profile and structure fairly well. Instead of freezing all of the stock in some sort of plastic container, I freeze my in ice cube trays. You know, those old 1950s plastic cube trays. Just fill them will the stock, freeze and store in a ziplock in the freezer. Its a very convenient way to have a little chicken stock to most dishes...I usually chuck a few into most everything I make and if you need a cup or so of stock, you can melt 8 or 10 of them at a time in a saucepan. Stock freezes fairly well, I would say for about 2 months. I find I use ALOT of chicken stock, and I go through it must faster than that. With the trays I use, 8 cubes makes 1 cup of stock. 

Now, if you want to be really gourmet, you can buy a fresh whole chicken and use it solely for making stock. I find that using a chicken in that manner produces an excellent stock, very clear and light. (See my post here for a light chicken stock). But you are using the entire chicken to make stock, which becomes a rather expensive bowl. 

If you want to do it the quick, cheap and dirty (and that is the way I usually operate), roast a chicken and have it as a meal. Skin off as much meat as you can from the chicken, and eat it as a meal (see my post on roasting a chicken). When you are just left with the bones (and a little meat on the bones),  place it in a ziplock bag and freeze it (I usually keep it in the same bag all the chicken guts are in that I took out when I was roasting it). Once you have 2 or 3 chicken carcasses in your freezer, you are ready to make stock! 

I adapted this recipe for making chicken stock from a recipe found in Susanna Foo's Chinese Cuisine.Ah Susanna! She is a real genius!! This was the first major book I purchased on Chinese cuisine, and she has really influenced my cooking! She had a restaurant in Philly, which was amazing, but unfortunately, it shut down. She now has another place open in Randor, which I have not been to.

Yet, I digress. 

One note about the ingredients. I usually save my onion and garlic skins and let them dry out in a metal vegetable/onion drawer. I then collect them in a large ziplock. When I have enough, I use them in stock. Same goes for the ends of ginger that dry out and get nasty. Let them sit around and they will get nice and hard and use can use them in this stock!

The ingredients for chicken stock: 

1 large stock pot-indispensable! 

2 or 3 whole chickens (frozen or fresh)
2 large while onions, quartered (with skin on)

1/2 head of garlic (with skin on)
a handful of star anise

Dried mikan (tangerine peels)

Roasted black peppercorns (whole)

Ginger, sliced with skin on (you can use fresh ginger or if you have little nubs of dried or semi-dried ginger in your drawer, those will do fine)

Bay Leaf

Dried onion skins (optional)

Fennel stalk (optional)
Celery root (optional)
Lemon Thyme or Fresh Thyme (optional)

If you are using a fresh raw chicken, this will make a delicious stock, but lighter and clearer than a dark chicken stock. If you are using a fresh raw chicken, you can probably get away with 1 chicken plus extra wings and drumsticks. But I always use a chicken I have already roasted. No need to waste all that beautiful meat.

You can also use the neck, giblets, feet, anything you feel comfortable with. I usually with save the giblets of the bird in a separate ziplock and chuck them in as well....I usually fish them out before I press the stock, because I am not particularly fond of the taste.

If you are not using a fresh raw chicken, then you will need to thaw your frozen, cooked chicken. Take the frozen chicken carcus out of the freezer. Place them in a large bowl, cover with water, and let them sit for 2 hours. This will help bring the chicken up to temperature, but also start imparting flavor on the stock. If you don't have the time for this step, it can be skipped-you can add the frozen carcus to the stock pot and start cooking immediately. Also, if you are using a fresh, raw chicken, you don't need to do this particular step.

Pour a swig of oil into your stock pot. You can take your onion and roughly quarter them, leaving the skin on, and add them to the pot. Add the peppercorns, ginger, mikan peels, garlic. Saute the onions for several minutes until browned, but not carmelized. You will find that the onion quarters will peel off, one layer at a time. A delicious aroma should start to fill the room. 

Next, add your chicken parts. You can either use the remains of a chicken you have already roasted, or, you can use a raw chicken that has not been roasted. 

If you elect to use a chicken you have already roasted, cut the carcuss up into quarters with a cleaver or sharp knife. You can also snap it into 2 pieces. Put it in there and stir fry it for a few minutes with the onion mixture. If you are using the remains of an already roasted chicken, you don't have to stir fry it too long, as the meat is already cooked. 

If you elect to use a raw chicken, either cut it yourself of have your butcher quarter it for you. If you are doing it yourself, remove the wings and drumsticks (cut the meat around the joint, exposing it. take your thumb and snap it backwards and the joint should "pop" out). Take a cleaver and then quarter the rest of the bird. 

Add some more oil to the pot and brown the chicken with the vegetable mixture until no longer pink. 

Fill the pot with water. How much water you ask? That always depends on how much chicken you have in your pot, and the size of your pot! I usually fill it with water up to the point where all the bones are submerged in water. 

Bring the whole mixture to a boil and reduce the heat to low. Let it cook for a few hours. I usually prod the chicken with a pair of sharp tongs and cut into the meat to see when the chicken cooked through. You can leave it cooking for as little as one hour, but I would recommend at least 2, possibly three.

You know when it is done when the liquid has thickening somewhat and it has taken on a dark golden color. All of the meat should easily come off the bone.

Please not there is no salt in this recipe, which is how I prefer it. If I need more salt for a particular recipe, I add it in after I have melted an chicken cube! 

After the chicken has cooked for a few hours, turn off the heat and let it sit. This helps the flavors develop, and it also cools the liquid off. 

Once the stock has cooled down to room temperature or so, I start the straining process.

There are several stages to this process and it all depends on how hard core you want to go. 

The first thing I do is take my tongs and remove and many of the major bones that I can.

Next, I prepare a large bowl and put a colander in it. I then pour the stock through that colander. This gets most of the medium sized bones,vegetable mesh and all the small bones and meat of the chicken out of the stock ("the moromi"--see below). Once the stock filters through, you will be left with something that looks like this:

As you can see from the above picture, the stock is free of major bones and vegetables. However, there are still particles in the stock. There are also smaller bones etc.

Now, at this point, this stock is almost ready to use for cooking. The smaller particles COULD interfere with flavor profile and texture for your dish though. As a minimum, I usually like to strain it one more time to remove those particles and any smaller bones, which could be dangerous.

If you want to go hardcore, proceed to stage 2!

Stage 2!
The next thing to do is to strain through the stock again, but this time with a fine
hand held sieve. Each time you run your have held sieve through the stock (In this pic, the blue bowl) wash it out in a separate bowl to remove all the smaller chicken meat. (In this pic, the red bowl).

This will significantly improve your stock. There will still be very small particles in the stock that the sieve cannot get though. Usually, I let bygones be bygones and let them be. I usually freeze my stock in ice cube trays (see below). When that happens the remaining small particles sink to the bottom and freeze. Once you take the frozen chicken stock cubes out of their trays, you can cut off the bottoms, removing the last remaining chicken bits and use them to make a light broth. Another option would be to melt the number of cubes you need for a recipe, and then strain them again, which usually catches them.

Stage 3

Chicken Moromi
After you have strained the stock with a colander and a smaller sieve, you are left with a mush of soft vegetables, chicken parts and bones. I refer to this as moromi. Moromi is a Japanese word referring to the rice, kojikin and yeast that is left after sake is strained. The chicken moromi is all the little bits of chicken meat, bone and vegetable after an initial straining.






Again, you have a four options here: You can continue  to extract all the remaining juices from the moromi by running it through a fine cheese cloth (option 1), you can use a colander and press the moromi into the colander hard (option 2)  or you can squeeze the moromi with you bare hands to extract the stock (option 3). Finally, you can simply throw the moromi away, but that is wasteful! (option 4-proceed to stage 4) Option 1 is the most time consuming, but it will leave you with more stock, and richer stock. Option 3 is also a great way to get more stock out of the moromi, but it is messy. I think Option 2 is the happy medium.

Option 1
Take the chicken moromi and put it in a cheesecloth and wring it out. This will allow you to extract even more of the stock from the moromi. The best way to do this is in very small batches, as it will allow you to extract as much stock out as possible.  This is the best way to extract as much stock as you can from the moromi. However, it is a very time consuming process. The cheesecloth also takes a real beating doing this. Cheesecloth is expensive, and I would prefer to use it for something other than making stock.

I have found a better alternative! Robyn got these bags from her mom called 3BBags. They are perforated and have a fine mesh, so they allow the vegetables to breathe, and thus extending the life of the vegetables. These are great because they are really lightweight and you chuck a few in your shopping bag when you go to the grocery and use them instead of plastic bags. They also work wonders for straining chicken stock and the best part is that they can be washed in the dishwasher! Just put some of the moromi in the corner of the bag and squeeze!







Chicken balls
After you have squeezed the liquid out, go through the small batch and look for any bones, peppercorns or parts of the star anise that broke up. I also don't like ginger in there. Throw those away. Place the "chicken ball" in a tray. Once you have gone through that process, you should have around 12-15 balls of chicken. I then use those as filling in sandwiches! I find it really delicious, but my fiancee thinks its gross!

Option 2
If you don't have a cheesecloth you can also squeeze the moromi using a colander. Place the colander over a large bowl. Place the moromi in the collander and press down on it with a hamburger presser or your hands. Strain the stock that comes out in a fine sieve. Pick out the bones as described above "Chicken Balls) under Option 1

Option 3
If you don't mind getting messy, you can take a handful of the moromi and squeeze it by hand, extracting all the stock you can. Pick out the bones as described above "Chicken Balls) under Option 1

Stage 4!

I then put the strained chicken stock in the fridge. I usually let it sit overnight, or at least a few hours. The stock should be completely cool. Now, depending on how long you cooked the chicken, the type of chicken, etc, you should have a nice layer of fat on top of your bowl of chicken stock. I will skim that off with a spatula, and then freeze it. I find it to be excellent when making pizza dough, cooking eggs for breakfast or even make scallion pancakes! (More on that later).

Chicken fat ready for freezing!

I then take a baster with one of those heat resistant tops and a small strainer. Place the strainer over the ice cube tray and pour the stock into the tray. The strainer should catch most of the meat particles. Place those in the freezer and let then stay there until they freeze. Transfer to a zip lock bag and you are done!

Its a really arduous task, but well worth it! My fiancee calls it a labor of love! 

It takes around 8 cubes to make 1 cup of stock! 

Enjoy!!!

Roasted Chicken with fennel, leaks and carrots

I love chicken!


Unfortunately, it is also rather expensive :( . Its actually cheaper pound for pound to buy a whole chicken. It will last you longer than just buying the breasts, and you have the additional advantage of using all the meat on it. You can even make stock out of the bones! so it is an excellent deal!

I am not so concerned about an organically raised chicken. A farmer has to be certified organic by the government, but that doesn't mean an organic chicken is any more or less healthy than a non-organic chicken. Free range is also misleading. You can call a chicken free range if it has access to outdoors. But sometimes, that access area is extremely limited, and not very safe.

A "good" chicken is one with lots of muscle on it (as opposed to fat). The taste of a strong chicken that gets to walk around is very different from a sweatshop chicken.

On the other hand, times are tough nowadays. I lost my job a while back and recently found a new job. But I am  not in a mood to spend more money! So, this time, I went with a sweatshop chicken! It was a little softer and flabbier than a chicken from say Prather Ranch Farms or Marin Sun Farms. If you have the extra disposable income to spare, I'd say get a good, free range chicken. Prather Ranch and Marin Sun Farms are good people raising good animals. They are just expensive. But, on the other hand, raising chickens properly IS expensive,so Prather Ranch and Marin Sun Farms do reflect the cost associated with raising sustainable, healthy animals.

For me, I made the decision to buy the more expensive chicken, but purchase it less often.  I think we just got used to sweatshop chickens.

Ingredients
1 raw roaster chicken, around 3-4 lbs
1 stalk of fennel, with bulb and frauns
2 carrots
1 or 2 yellow onions
garlic
Lavender salt
Olive oil
1 lemon
Fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano)

Equipment
Large bowl
Ziplock bag
Small bowl
Saran Wrap
Roasting pan

1 chopstick

Meat thermometer (optional)
Bread knife for carving
Paper towels
Disinfectant

Procedure

Precooking Prep
Eat your chicken soon after you buy it! The chicken can last a day or two in the refrigerator, but it is best to eat it right after buying it. The longer have the chicken in the refrigerator, the flavor will go away and it won't taste as good. Obviously, if you wait too long, the meat will go bad, rot and have a bad smell. If you open the package and the chicken meat smells bad, throw the bird away. You don't want to risk getting sick!

If you are going to keep the chicken in the refrigerator, try to put it on the lowest shelf level. This way, if the chicken does leak, the raw chicken juice will only fall on your refrigerator shelf, not on any of your other foods. I also try to keep it in a bowl, so if any of the juices do escape somehow, they will be self contained.

You are dealing with raw chicken, so you have a higher risk of salmonella. Anything the chicken comes in contact with needs to be washed in hot water and disinfectant (your hands, sink, forks, etc).

Have a bottle of disinfectant readily available and a large supply of paper towels.


Take a ziplock bag out and write "chicken guts" on it. Write the date on the bag.


You will want the kitchen sink completely empty. Clear out any dishes or other objects from the kitchen sink. If you have 2 mini-sinks in one sink, all the better.


Take the chicken out of the refrigerator and let it sit for 1 hour at room temperature in the bowl. This will bring the meat up to temperature and allow for a more even cooking. In the meantime, prep your vegetables.

Vegetable Prep
 I dont like to use a metal rack or aluminum foil. Partly because it is wasteful (you need to wash the metal rack and throw away the aluminum foil), but also because as the bird cooks, all the juices and fat will melt off into the pan. Afterwards, you can use that fat to make wonderful things (like scrabbled eggs in the morning).

Take 3 or 4 of the larger carrots in your bunch and split them in half, laying the cut, flat half down on the pan. Space them about an inch or so apart, it should take about 4 halves to cover the chicken. This will serve as your rack for the chicken. Take the leaks and cut them the same way. place the leaks in between the carrots.

Take a lemon and boil it in a pot of water for a few minutes. Take it out and pierce it with a knife several times. Stuff it into the cavity of the bird. The lemon will start to steam when in the oven and help cook the bird from the inside, while releasing its juices! Brilliant! (I got this tip from Jamie Oliver's show!)

For vegetables, I use carrots, onions, garlic, leaks and fennel. I love fennel. Its delicious and lends a lovely subtle  licorice taste to this dish. If you don't have fennel, you can use celery in a pinch.

Chop the carrots and fennel up roughly. You can even use the fawns of the fennel if you like. Cut the onions into quarters. You can leave the garlic whole, and even with its skin on! This will become your stuffing for the chicken.


About 30 minutes into warming up the chicken to room temperature, I preheat the oven and let it warm up nice and proper to 400 F.

Pour lavender salt into a separate bowl (you will be rubbing it on the chicken and your fingers will get infected, so you don't want to be putting your infected fingers into all of your lavender salt, just a little bit)

Chicken Prep
Unwrap the chicken and carefully throw away the paper or plastic covering. Take all the giblets out of the cavity of the bird and place them in the ziplock bag marked "chicken guts" (you can use them for making chicken stock later).

Choose a specific sink for raw chicken. Gently wash the chicken with running water, inside and out. I repeat gently, because if you put the faucet on high, the water is going to hit the raw chicken  and the infected water will splatter all over the place--you don't want that. Once you have touched the chicken with your hands, use your arm or elbow to turn the water on and off.

Gently pat the chicken dry with the paper towels and place on your oven tray with the carrots.


Take a single chopstick and pull away the skin on the breast meat. This allows the skin to "breathe" during the cooking process and gives it a very crispy taste.


Rub the chicken down with lavender salt and freshly ground pepper. Make sure to put the salt mixture both under the skin you just peeled away, as well as over it. If you have thyme, rosemary or any fresh herbs, you can stuff them under the skin.

Take olive oil and cover the bird generously in olive oil. Really get in there and massage it into the bird, making sure to get the wings and under the skin. Stuff the bird with the cut carrots and onions.

If you have a meat thermometer, stick it into the meatiest part of the bird, in the back.

By this time, your oven should be nice and hot. Place the bird inside the oven, on the lower rack. this will insure than it doesn't overcook.















Chicken Roasting
Roast at 400 F for 1 hour. A  3.5 or 4 lbs bird takes about 1 hour to cook.

I usually will chuck one or two cubes of chicken stock into pan at some point during the cooking process.



Knowing when your bird is finally cooked is a real art. The first indicator for me is smell---your kitchen should fill with a delicious aroma that will fill your whole house! The second indicator is visual-the legs and theighs should no longer look pink. They should have a delicious golden color. The skin on the drumstick should seperate from the meat. Third, take a fork and prick the chicken in different parts. If clear juices ooze out, then it is done. If the juices are pink and or red, then it it not yet done. The thighs are the thickest part of the bird, so they will be done last. Cut into the bird near the joint between the drumstick and the thigh and check to see if it is cooked.


The internal temperature of the bird needs to get to 160 F.

Clean up the kitchen while the bird is cooking. Make sure to use disinfectant and paper towels (don't use a kitchen sponge).

After it is done cooking, let it rest outside of the oven for a good 10 minutes. This does two things: it lets the juices inside the bird really sink into the meat, leaving it more juicy and tender. It will also cool the bird off a few degrees, making it easier to bite into.


After you finished eating, comes the really fun part! Take out the carrot rack and all the vegetables and serve them with the chicken.

After you removed the bird, the carrot rack and all the vegetables, the pan should have some fat and remnants of chicken and vegetables still in in that were stuck to the pan. I either turn that into a gravy, or I save it and use the fat to cook scrambled eggs in the morning. The vegetables work wonders in eggs!


Its important to use as much of the chicken as you can. If you get your chicken with the feet off, chop them off and use them for stock! When preparing the chicken, save the guts in a ziplock bag in the freezer. No need to waste those precious morsels! After I have cooked the chicken I carve it up and get all the meat off of it I can. You can reheat that meat and make another dinner, or have it cold as a sandwich. Once I have stripped the carcass of as much meat as I can, I snap off the legs and wings. I then take a knife and cut off as much meat as I can from the legs and wings. I put the legs and wing bones back in a ziplock bag along with the carcass and chuck it into the freezer. After I have about 2 or 3 carcass, I am ready to make chicken stock. I will use the carcass as well as all the guts to make rick dark chicken stock.

5 Spice Powder

5 Spice Powder is one of those essential ingredients that you can use to quickly add additional flavor to all sorts of meats.

I usually will add 5 spice powder to lamb when I am grilling it, or searing it to seal in the juices. It also works well with Duck when you are roasting it with honey and soy sauce.

You can easily make 5 Spice Powder with a spice grinder.

Version #1 Ingredients
Dried Mikan peels  5 pieces of peel
Roasted Sichuan Peppercorns  1 teaspoon
Anise Seed    1 teaspoon
Cumin Seed   1 teaspoon
Brown Sugar   1/4 teaspoon




Version #2 Ingredients

Dried Mikan peels  5 pieces of peel

Roasted Sichuan Peppercorns  1 teaspoon

Roasted Fennel Seed  1 teaspoon

Anise Seed    1 teaspoon

Cinnamon Stick   1 stick

Brown Sugar  1/4 teaspoon

Grind it all in a spice grinder until it is very fine. Enjoy!

Dried Mikan (tangerine) Peels

The main ingredient I use is dried mikan (tangerine) peels. I hate wasting food and I love that you can use both the flesh and the skin of the mikan for cooking!

When you are about to eat your mikan, wash the outer skin thoroughly and dry it off with a clean towel! These days, you don't know what sort of pesticides have been put on your food. You will find it difficult to wash after you peeled it.

I usually dry my mikan peels in three stages:

Stage 1

Place the mikan peels out on a plate or dish on a window still that gets plenty of sun. You really want the peel to dry out thoroughly. You know all the moisture has evaporated when you can easily crush a peel or break it into two pieces.

Eventually, the peels will dry up, harden and release a lovely, somewhat burnt, aroma. 

Stage 2
Next, i place the dried skins into a ziplock bag. Make sure to leave lots of air so they can "breathe". I will usually chuck the bag in the back of my car and leave it out there for a good month or so. I don't have a garage, so my car is out and exposed all day long. The heat inside the car, combined with the additional exposure to the sun really dries them out. Your car will take on the aroma of the dried mikan, which you may or may not be partial too. I happen to love it!

Stage 3
After about a month or so in my car, I take the peels out and transfer them to an airtight jar. I find the ones with a seal and lid are the best--something like this (http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/322003648/food_clear_kitchenware_metal_clip_glass.html). In an airtight jar like that one, they will stay like this indefinitely.

These peels are really great to have around if you want to add a layer of smokey complexity to stocks. I also use them when I am making Raiyu (Chinese chili oil) (see recipe here)  for some additional flavor. They are also excellent for making Chinese Five Spice Powder (see recipe here).  I dont recommend them in stir frys, as they tend to taint the meat with a smokey, burnt flavor.

Braised Lamb chops with mashed sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli and caramelized onions

Lamb chops were on sale today! Yippie!

This was a fairly simple French/Chinese preparation.

I powdered the chops with five spice powder on both sides and then fried them in a large frying pan. this seals the meat and allows it to remain juicy.

I then removed the chops and chucked them into a crock pot. I then sauteed the onions and garlic. I just quartered the onions and let them cook in the oil. This is nice because the oil has taken on some of the five spice powder from the lamb, and gives it a wonderful flavor. Cover the lamb with the onions and garlic. I then usually chop up 2 or 3 fresh tomatoes and add them to the crockpot. And chuck in 2 or 3 stock cubes into a sauce pan and let them melt. (preferably lamb stock, but chicken stock will do in a pinch). Add that to the crock pot as well. I finish it off with the cheapest bottle of red wine I can find. I add enough wine to ensure that the lamb is just submerged in the wine/stock liquid. If you have any fresh thyme, now is a good time to add it!

I let that slowcook in the crockpot for a few hours. If you have a crockpot,I recommend that you make this meal at night, just before going to bed. Leave the crockpot on, and you will wake up to a delicious smell in the morning. Alternatively, you can make it in the morning, and return home to the same lovely smell.

This goes very well with homemade noodles. I served it with steamed broccoli, mashed sweet potatoes and some of the carmelized onions. Delicious!

Brisket braised with potatoes, carrots and fennel

I discovered that Marin Sun Farms has a shop in Oakland, at Market Hall. I was very elated to hear this! Even better, they had some brisket on sale for $4.99! I couldn't resist. I roasted it with fennel, carrots, and potatoes and a little bit of red wine! Simple and delicious!

Ingredients
Brisket, 1 lbs
carrots
Celery
Leeks
Onions
Baby potatoes
Beef Stock
Red Wine

Place carrots, leeks, celery and onions in a baking dish
Place the brisket onto of the vegetable bed.

Add stock and red wine until the liquid is about half way up to the meat.

Bake at 300 for 1 hour, or until the brisket is very soft and cooked through.