[Intro music]
To make a chicken stock, you will need raw chicken bones, fresh, shiny, pink, beautiful.
Salt a pinch, a medium size mirepoix, a bouquet garni,
a sliced white part of a leek, I have extra parsley,
bay leaf and peppercorn because my bouquet garni is a bit small, vegetable oil and butter.
Place the butter and vegetable oil in a stock pot.
Turn the heat on and heat the pot on medium heat until the butter has melted.
Then add the mirepoix. Add the sliced leek.
Sweat the vegetables for 6 to 8 minutes on medium to medium low.
We are not covering the vegetables. We call that to sweat. When you sweat, you lose water alright.
So when you are sweating vegetables or sweating something is
when you cook food in small amount of fat on medium-medium low
in order to release the water without browning the food. To sweat, very important.
Stir the vegetables with a wooden spoon from time to time.
And meanwhile, I am going to tell you about chicken bones.
You want to use fresh chicken bones obviously and raw.
It’s very important, we don’t use cooked bones to make a stock.
When the marrow is cooked, there is a high risk of a danger of food borne illness.
So always use raw bones to make your stock.
Do not use your leftover used chicken bones or turkey bones to make your stock.
Stir. So cook your vegetables 8-10 minutes,
you know until they start to get soft, they release their flavour. It is not to be very fried.
Ok. Then add your bones.
Before using your bones, you want to place them in a bowl,
run cold water over for 6-10 minutes,
stirring once in a while in order to remove all the blood.
Then strain it through a colander and discard any excess of fat from the skin,
from the neck or the breast for instance, sometimes you have extra piece of fat.
So trim some of the fat off. Add your bones.
So you see my bones are pretty clean, they don’t have too much fat.
Add enough water to cover the bones by about an inch.
You do not want to dissolve too much the flavours,
however, you do want to have your bones totally covered and immersed into the liquid.
Bring the pot to a boil.
So raise the temperature to high because you do want to cross the danger zone rapidly,
meaning, you want to bring it to a boiling point rapidly to prevent bacteria to develop.
The stock is boiling. Bring it to a boil for about a minute.
And then turn down the heat to a low to allow the stock to simmer gently.
To make sure it cooks gently, gently, gently..
And that will make clear stock, if your skimming.
You may have to do that every 10-15 minutes. Ok.
So regularly. Try not to get the vegetables.
Push down the bones to make sure they are totally covered by the liquid.
After 10 minutes, add the extra parsley stems that you have,
extra bay leaves because my bouquet garni was small, a few peppercorns.
And very important, a pinch of salt.
Not much because you don’t want to have your stock to be salty.
You may reduce it when you cook it with sauces.
But the salt will help to extract the flavour. So I don’t like to season my stalk too much.
So a pinch; for chicken only. All the other stock, you never use any salt,
only for chicken stock, a pinch of salt. Stir.
And allow the stock to simmer gently, slowly for about 2 hours,
skimming the skum off from time to time.
And this is simmering. Few bubbles at a time. Gently.
That way we will get a very clear stock.
Our stock has been simmering for 1 hour.
I skimmed it about 3 times.
So now, I am going to add the bouquet garni for the last hour.
Let the stock simmer and the bouquet garni is going to infuse within the stock.
Perfuming and releasing aromas.
My chicken stock has simmered for 2 hours and I have skimmed it very regularly.
So now, it’s time to strain through a thin sieve
or you can also strain through a conical strainer.
Remove the bouquet garni. Let it strain.
Strain the... You can see the fat here. Don’t worry about it.
This is from the skin, the butter we used, and this will be removed later on,
I will show you. This is pretty clear. This is nice.
Beautiful chicken stock.
The quality of the stock will be much superior than any stock
you may purchase from the market in tablets, powder, liquid forms.
Those are full of preservatives.
By doing your own chicken stock, you will control the quality of the ingredients
you are putting in. And it is not 25 ingredients;
words, that you can’t even pronounce.
They are not too salty, there is no preservatives.
Your stock will keep very well in the fridge upto 5 days,
or you can freeze it in 1 liter container for upto 6 months.
Then throw the leftover here.
I don’t like to press them too much when I strain the stock
because that could push inside, through the sieve, some impurities again.
So I like it to let it just drain by itself.
After straining your stock, place it in a ice bath to cool it
and to prevent bacteria from growing. Then place it in the fridge.
Discard everything you strained like all the bones, do not use it. Just throw it away.
Then after the fat will solidify, then it will be easy to remove.
This is the chicken stock we made.
I left it in the fridge for the night and I have removed the fat.
So it is not as gelatinous as the fish stock. And it tastes delicious.