What makes a stock? Bones baby! Bones are the essence of stock. Some meat might still adhere to the bone and that is okay. For making chicken stock, you can use chicken bones from after deboning whole or parts of the raw chicken, leftover bones after roasting and taking apart the meat or bones left on plates after eating. I find the last one rather unappetizing. 😛 If your bones collection is small, you can freeze them. And when you have enough, it’s time to make stock!
Murky and yet so delicious and good.
The easiest way to make chicken stock that is almost effortless is by using a slow cooker aka crock pot, compared to making stock on stove top. Between the two, I would choose the slow cooker anytime as it’s really so easy. For one, I don’t have to keep checking the water level in case it goes lower. And two, no worry about the open fire. There is very little evaporation when using a slow cooker.
Tsk, I don’t have a pressure cooker.
My mom’s very old and yet functional slow cooker.
To be frank, after blogging about how to make pork stock via the stove top method nearly a year ago, I didn’t make any more of it until recently. Why? I don’t know… I guess being lazy and dilly-dally are my things. I always remind myself that I need to make stock ASAP. It’s the action that’s missing. Haha
Why I am so eager to make stock? It’s because of its healing properties. According to many articles that I’ve read, stock or also known as the hyped up bone broth is good for gut health. Do you know that our gut is our second brain? About bone broth, it’s just a cool name for the otherwise plain-name stock. It’s more about misaddressing stock for broth and marketing fanfare. So just know that bone broth is stock and vice versa, and stock is good for you and me.
To make this super easy chicken stock, you need chicken carcass, water, apple cider vinegar and ginger. You may add vegetables but I prefer mine purely meat except for the use of apple cider vinegar and ginger which are use for drawing out the minerals from the bones and to cover up any unpleasant smell. The resulting chicken stock only taste like chicken stock (what else) without any vinegar or ginger smell. I’ve read that it’s good to roast the bones beforehand as it will impart more flavors to the stock. I haven’t tried it before as I always go for the easy route (=throw everything in a slow cooker after defrosting/thawing and cleaning) therefore no roasting for me. But I am interested to try it one day. I’ve tried roasting the bones, and it imparts richer flavors to the stock/bone broth. Nowadays, I use roasting bones for my stock. 🙂
2 chicken carcasses with some meat clinging to ’em plus apple cider vinegar, ginger and water. Sometimes I skip the ginger.
2 hours in high setting in slow cooker. When the liquid is bubbling, use a ladle and skim the scum. Many says scum contains impurities and particularly if you’re using chicken that are conventionally raised, it’s better to remove the scum.
I read from a blog (forget which one) that says to just leave the scum alone. I tried a few times with and without removing the scum, and I can definitely taste the different. So, SKIM the scum!
My chicken stock is done after 19 hours in slow cooker. Something came up, if not I would have leave it longer. 24 hours or longer is the best.
Ladle the liquid into recycled jars through a sieve.
Liquid gold!
Leftover from making chicken stock. I used the meat which just fall off easily and made spicy pulled chicken and prawns. For the bones, if there are soft and/or easily breaks apart, you can feed it to the dogs and cats.
Started with 1.25 liter of water and yielded 1.15 liter of chicken stock. A loss of 100ml.
How to use stock? You can use it to make soups, sauces, etc. I almost always use it as soup for pork balls with eggs or just drink it like that (heated of course) with salt and pepper which is extremely stunning. My gut will warms up and I know I’ve done my body right. It really does heal the gut and make my skin and hair super smooth!
Once you learn how to make your own stock, you’ll know how good and enriching it is. So worth your time with VERY little effort.
Super Easy Chicken Stock In Slow Cooker
2 chicken carcass, bones; defrosted if from freezer and cleaned
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 thumb ginger, sliced into 2
1.25L water, or more to cover
Method:
1. Place cleaned chicken carcass and/or bones in a slow cooker and cover with water.
2. Add apple cider vinegar and ginger.
3. Adjust the slow cooker to high and cook for about 2 hours until it starts to bubble. Skim off the scum or foam if you like to. I skip this step and didn’t find any unpleasant smell.
4. Turn slow cooker to low setting and cook between 12-48 hours. The longer the better.
S. Turn off slow cooker. Remove large pieces of carcass/bones into a plate. Strain stock through a sieve into prepared jars. Once cooled, store the stock in the fridge (to be used up in 7 days) or freezer (few months).
Note: Depending on the type of bones used, the stock may or may not yield a gelatinous result. It doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. It’s equally rich and healthy. Stock lacks seasoning and therefore need to be seasoned before consuming.
Happy stock making!
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