RecipesStock
Chicken Stock
Fond blanc de volaille. Cold water, a slow skim, no salt. The base under sauces and plates — not a soup.
- Yield
- 2 L
- Time
- 4 hr
- Difficulty
- Foundation
Ingredients
- chicken bones (backs, wings, carcass)2 kg
- cold water3 L
- onion, roughly cut200 g
- carrot, roughly cut100 g
- celery, roughly cut100 g
- bouquet garni (thyme, bay, parsley stems)1
- black peppercorns5 g
Method
- 01
Rinse the bones under cold water. Put them in a tall pot and cover with the 3 L of cold water. Do not add salt.
- 02
Set over medium heat and bring up slowly. Grey foam will rise before a simmer. Skim it. That is the job for the first 20 minutes.
- 03
Hold a lazy simmer — small bubbles, never a rolling boil. A boil emulsifies fat and turns the stock cloudy.
- 04
After the scum slows, add onion, carrot, celery, bouquet garni, and peppercorns.
- 05
Simmer 3 to 3½ hours, uncovered, skimming fat as it collects. Bones should give, not disintegrate.
- 06
Strain through a fine chinois into a clean container. Do not press the solids — pressing makes it muddy.
- 07
Cool in an ice bath until cold, then refrigerate. A gelled stock with a clean fat cap by morning is the test. Lift the fat. Use the jelly for sauce work.
Notes
- First pot I boiled hard. Cloudy, greasy, tasted like scum. Rolling simmer only.
- I salted it once so it would 'taste like something.' Then I could not reduce it into a pan sauce. Never salt a stock.
- At OCSA the bones come off service. At home I used market backs and wingtips — more fat, longer skim.
- I used to leave the pot on the counter overnight. Wrong. Ice bath, then fridge.