I’ve been looking at recipes for soup stock from bones
for years, but could never bring myself to believe they’d actually work.
Finally decided to give it a try as I had the remnants of a store-bought
barbecued chicken in my fridge. It really does work! Most of the recipes I’ve
seen, either online or in books, run pretty much the same, but I’ve adapted
this to work in the slow cooker. Given you need to let the slow cooker run for
16 hours or so, it’s easiest to start in the late or middle afternoon.
1 chicken carcass*
6 cups water
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 cup diced onion
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced carrots
1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced
1 large pinch salt
Place carcass in 4 litre crock pot, and add water and
vinegar. Turn cooker to high and let run for two hours. Add the rest of the
ingredients. Leave on high and continue to cook, stirring occasionally. Once it
reaches a steady simmer, turn it down to low and let it run until it’s run for
14-15 hours since you added the vegetables. It doesn’t have to be exact. Let it
cool down, then strain (a colander and a large measuring cup are good for this),
keeping the broth and throwing out the bones and vegetables.
You now have basic stock. If you’re not going to turn it
into soup, freeze it until you’re ready to use it.
If you're dealing with a turkey carcass, double up on all the other ingredients.
* That includes all the scraps of meat, bits of skin,
fat, cartilage that you can’t be bothered picking off the bone or are unlikely
to eat
