Journal of a Minnesota Angler

This may be an odd subject for a fishing blog, but there is a method to my madness. This post is a preamble to a braised rabbit recipe I’ll be posting shortly. Granted, rabbit doesn’t have much to do with fishing either, but at least it has to do with the outdoors.

My wife has been making homemade chicken stock for as long as I’ve know her. After making a (homemade) roasted chicken, she’ll use the carcass to make the stock. She’ll then freeze it for making homemade chicken soup at a later date when someone in the family is sick. Sometimes she freezes the carcass if she doesn’t have time to make stock that night.

Here’s the recipe:

1 chicken carcass
1 1/ carrots, unpeeled
one small onion, skin left on
1 stock of celery
1 tsp black peppercorn
1 bay leaf
2 cloves of garlic
NO SALT

Put the chicken carcass in a large stock pot and cover with water. For our recipe this time we are using two chicken ribs. Wash 1 1/2 carrots, one stock of celery, and one small onion. Cut the carrots and celery into thirds and add to stock pot. Cut off the tip and root off the onion, chop in half and add to stock pot. LEAVE THE ONION SKIN ON. This is an important secret to give the stock some color. All the ingredients are in large chunks so they can be easily strained out when the stock is done.

Put the peppercorn, bay leaf, and garlic in a spice ball (or tea ball). Add to stock pot. We didn’t add garlic to our spice ball because we were out.

We do NOT add salt to this mixture. The evaporation makes the salt seasoning unpredictable, so you shouldn’t add salt until you’re ready to use it for a recipe. It could also throw off your recipe if the stock isn’t salt neutral.

Simmer to taste, at least 4-5 hours.

The stock is best if you keep it simmering for a number of hours. The longer it cooks, the more the collagen in the chicken dissolves out into the water. Simmering for a few hours makes a broth. Cooking it at least 4 hours makes a stock.

Note that you can also do all of this in a crock pot, set it to low, and cook it 8-10 hours overnight. That makes the best stock and you don’t have to keep an eye on it.

Here, we’re making a broth for our braised rabbit because we’re only cooking it for two hours. We’re using a cast iron dutch oven because our rabbit will eventually be cooked in it and saves us from cleaning two different pots.

Chicken Stock