I’m currently in the process of moving, exciting! (Not really) and while I’m still apartment hunting with the impending doom of my lease running out at the end of this month, I also have so much stuff in my freezer that needs to get eaten so I don’t have to carry it with me to another place. Cue the chicken stock.
A while back Caleb and I decided to tackle some fried chicken at home but I bought some drumsticks that were not a cut that Caleb enjoyed so along with a rotisserie chicken carcass in my freezer, it was time for my first run at homemade chicken stock.
I did some googling to get some basics and came up with a whole onion and 2-3 stalks of carrot and celery each to go into the stock. I cut everything up and dumped it on a large pot with all the chicken and about 3 quarts of water (my pot fit about 2.5 quarts and I added the last half quart partway through the cook once some of the water evaporated.) 3 hours later my stock was born!
Im so happy I did this because with all of the stress of apartment hunting in the age of Coronavirus, I needed the kitchen to smell like home. The smell of chicken stock made me feel like I was back in Rochester with my parents making some homemade soup with chicken stock starting early in the morning. Even on a hot summer day, I welcomed the warmth of this smell and I could just feel myself let things go just for a little while.
I ended up with 1.5 quarts of stock once i strained out all the solids and cleared out some of the excess fat on top, which I packed up and partially froze. I kept out the half quart and refrigerated it and 2 days later I made some noodle soup for myself. Ironically I didn’t have any chicken for my soup but I had tons of veggies and a box of little noodle rings that I purchased just for this occasion.
I followed Molly Baz’s recipe and it all came together very quickly in just one pot.
The stock could’ve used more salt and I topped it with some black pepper and was super happy with the result. I’m so excited to reheat the rest of this stock later when I need another warm bowl of soup. It felt so easy and satisfying to make my own stock at home and it was simple beyond belief. No wonder different soups were made this way growing up. I’m so happy they were. I needed home right about now and I’m happy I found a way to do it. Of course my parents would’ve have meat galore and home grown asian veggies like lotus root and winter melon but this was close enough.