Search This Blog

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Crockpot Chicken Carcass Soup Stock

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