A good homemade stock is a hallmark of a resourceful, frugal, whole-foods kitchen operation. It allows you to get full value out of your chickens, veggies, and other scraps as well as saving money on stock, broth, or bouillon you would have to purchase. In addition, the ingredients lists on most of those products is less than ideal.
I endeavored, therefore, to make a lovely chicken stock. I saved my scraps.
I've been keeping a bag in the freezer and stashing scraps - onion ends and peels*, celery leaves, carrot tops, apple cores, everything.
I put all of those goodies in my giant stockpot with bones from a baked chicken and some bay leaves. All is well so far, right?
And I cooked it.
And cooked it.
And cooked it.
I cooked it for hours, and it had no flavor. I cooked it for two days, and it had no flavor.
Then, finally, eventually, on about the third day, it had a flavor - the flavor of utter disgustingness. The flavor of burnt something. The flavor of "this is going in the trash."
The flavor of failure.
Total time: 3 days
Estimated cost: free - I just used scraps
Estimated cost: free - I just used scraps
Serves: no one with tastebuds
Tastiness factor: 0
Easiness factor: 5
Easiness factor: 5
*According to James Duke, most of the beneficial quercetin in the onion is in the peels. He suggests cooking the peels with the onions and straining them out later.
Veg broth is usually easy provided the water:veggies ratio isn't too high. usually you'll need about 3 lbs of scraps plus 1 quartered onion with skin on for a 7 qt stockpot of broth (10 qt with head room). Meat stocks are harder. Did you crack the bones to release the marrow? If not, the flavour, naturally occuring gelatine and fat for mouth feel won't come out. Adding (very fresh!) blood of the same animal will also add flavour and thicken the soup. Before I was veg and since for others who are not, I used to use the cracked bones of one chicken and any blood of said chicken(wrapped them in paper and whacked them with a hammer)in 4 qts of water with my preferred herbs,on onion including skin cut into fourths, 5 cloves of garlic, flattened on the side of a knife and any carrot, fennel, potato skins, onion,parsley or celery scraps in a stockpot or crockpot (given busyness I'm going to suggest the crockpot) on low or at a low simmer until gelatine starts to form on top. This will also work without the blood or the veg scraps. Leave the fennel out if you might use this in asian cooking as the flavours tend to combine badly. Kale or broccoli scraps should not be used as the entire pot of stock will become very bitter and smelly in a very bad way.(kale and broccoli stalks can be cut up fine into casseroles or broccoli stems can be added shredded to most recipes of vinegar coleslaw or chopped salad.) Cabbage, however lends an almost buttery flavour. It should take about a day in the crockpot or 2-3 hour for the stove top model. Allow to cool.Strain through a fine sieve to remove bones and dead vegetal matter. and then refrigerate.This allows you to scrape off some or all the fat in solid form if you like and also lets you store said fat for use in recipes that call for schmaltz. For storage pour into a oiled cupcake tin and freeze,then you already have your half cup portions. Store in a airtight container for up to 3 months.
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