Chicken Stock

Ok, so this isn't really a recipe, it's really more like a vital skill. Look, canned broth is fine in its place, I have bouillon cubes for emergencies and I actually really like the "Better than Bouillon" bases that some company that I can't remember the name of makes. But none of these things are homemade stock. Not even close. Comparing them is like comparing twinkies with tirimisu and is, frankly, personally insulting.

For any of you who don't know the difference between stock and broth here is the quick, not terribly accurate answer: broth is made from meat, stock is made from bones. We are going to ignore vegetable ones for now. Heh. With broth you get the flavor of the meat and a liquid that feels like water. It is good for lots of things. With stock you get the flavor of the meat and a liquid that feels like some kind of rich, smooth, wonderful thing. It is good for everything. What happens is the collagen, protein and other goodies break down into the water and give it a smooth almost creamy mouth feel. Stock should turn almost solid, like mostly set jello, when chilled. Pretty much any recipe that calls for broth, use stock instead and it will be better. Especially soups and stews. And rice. I wish I had had stock the other day when I made jambalaya, it makes it smooth like risotto. But, back to the point, you make stock with bones.

What I have here is three split chicken breast rib racks and some scraps. This is adequate, but not ideal. You really want the whole chicken worth of bones. You want all that connective tissue since that's where most of the good stuff comes from (note: you don't use the meat. Stock is made from the carcass or parts that are leftover after you get as much of the meat as you want off of it). A lot of stock recipes call for browning the bones, but if the bones are from a cooked piece of chicken you don't need to. What I have is two sets of cooked and one raw. I didn't bother browning the raw one, it will be just fine. If you have a good cleaver you can chop up the bones, that helps them release their goodies better. My cleaver is a joke, so I don't. A lot of recipes also call for a sachet, a bundle of spices, to be used in it but I don't like doing that. I would rather add what spices I want for each recipe and have my stock just taste like chicken. All I'm adding today is this onion top and a bay leaf. They won't really change the flavor, but will add some nice aroma. Often times carrots, celery, parsley and such are added. You can do that if you want. But like I said, I just want my stock to taste like concentrated chicken. So you put your bones in a pot and cover them with cold water. Starting with cold water is important, hot water binds the proteins and makes it harder for them to release. Or something like that, I can't find my reference that I read it from. But start with cold water. Now bring it to a boil (note: if you care about the appearance of your stock, don't bring it to a boil as it will make it cloudy. Just bring it to a gentle simmer and stir it as little as possible. Just so you folks know, I like my stock cloudy. I'm sure some people will be screaming "blasphemy", but whatever. I just think it looks better than clear stock. If you want clear stock, I can't really help you much. It all tastes the same.), then reduce to a low simmer. Now simmer for hours. Many hours. I have never heard of overcooking stock, I don't think it can happen. I usually cook mine for four to eight hours (it really needs at least four), depending on when I start. I started at noon this time and cooked it for ten hours. While it's cooking it will get this foamy spooge on top. Scrape it off and discard it, you don't want it in there. If the water level drops enough that bones are showing, add some more. Adding hot water is best. My favorite time to make stock is in the winter when it's cold and wicked dry. It fills my apartment with warmth, steam and essentially, chicken potpourri. But today it's overcast, rainy and 65 degrees or so. It's fine stock making weather. Now what I was planning on doing was showing, hour by hour, the way stock looks while it cooks. It would start with watery and mostly clear and end with thick and golden. But unfortunately this didn't work. With the lighting in my kitchen it all looks pretty much the same after hour two. So here is the end of hour one. At this point my brother pulls out the bones and picks off any leftover meat scraps to use in, well, whatever. It's cooked chicken. You can do that. My buddy who went to culinary school leaves it in, he says it adds more flavor. There are pluses to both ways and sometimes I do one, sometimes another. This time I'm leaving the meat in. Here is somewhere in the middle. Lovely isn't it? Now, see how the bones are pretty much all separate? That's the good stuff, the connective tissues are breaking down. When it's done (after at least four hours, the more the better) you will want to strain it. My strainer had an accident a while ago, so I have to turn it inside out. Hopefully you won't have to do that. Just strain it into a container and then put that container into an ice bath. You want the stock to cool pretty quickly. Once it's cool enough to put in the fridge, cover it tightly and do that. I usually chill it overnight, that gives it plenty of time. Several hours should do though. When it is chilled pull it out of the fridge and scrape the fat off. It should come off easily, leaving you with virtually fat free chicken concentrate. Mmmmm. Three split breasts worth of bones and ten hours gave me three cups of stock. Now ... well, use it. It goes great with anything you want chicken flavored liquid in. Right now it should be really like a jelly, but once it heats up a little it turns right back into water-like liquid. I usually freeze it in one cup and half cup portions and pull it out whenever I want, it keeps for months in the freezer. So there you go! Chicken stock. You can use this method with any kind of bones; pork, beef, turkey, whatever you like. Use it, love it.

Addendum: I forgot to mention a couple things. Bones and scrapes can be frozen and saved till you are ready to use them. They last months that way. So if you make a chicken, freeze the carcass once you are done picking it clean and when you have a spare morning/afternoon/evening make some stock. Also if you have cooked your stock all day and used up all the connective tissues and whatnot and strained it and it isn't as strong as you want, just reduce it till it's how you like it. It's not really a delicate substance. Heh.

Sausage and Chicken Jambalaya

1/2 pound of boneless, skinless chicken
1/2 pound of kielbasa or other sausage
1 small onion, chopped
1 small bell pepper, roasted and chopped
1 cup brown rice
2 1/2 cups chicken broth (or however much your rice calls for)
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp cayenne (more or less, to taste)
1 small bay leaf
salt and pepper

Chop up the chicken and kielbasa to large bite-sized pieces. Brown the sausage in a large pot, remove to a paper towel lined plate. Brown the chicken in the sausage fat, remove to a plate (not lined). Add onions to the pot, brown them for a bit then add the pepper and garlic. Saute for a minute or less then remove to the same plate as the chicken. Add the rice and saute till slightly clear. Pour in the chicken broth and scrap up all the fond you can. Add the sausage, chicken and vegetables back into the pot. Add the spices. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to low, cover and simmer till rice is cooked, an hour or an hour and fifteen minutes or so. Remove the bay leaf and serve.

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Ok, first things first. No, jambalaya doesn't need to have shrimp in it. No, it doesn't. Jambalaya is a concept, not an absolute. It is a Louisiana dish, so it does often have shrimp since there are so many down there, but it is not a necessity. And I don't really like seafood so I'm not putting it in here. If you want to, go nuts, I'm not going to stop you. Sometimes I use pork instead of chicken, you can also use beef or whatever you like. There are as many recipes for this dish as there are people who make it. Vegetable broth works fine too or even just water, but if you use water make sure to make lots and lots of fond or else it will be bland. Well, as bland as anything with half a pound of sausage can be. Heh.

Now that that is settled, here we go. Have you ever roasted your own peppers? If not, you really should. It's wicked easy and much better than the jarred stuff, if you ask me. You can always use the jarred stuff, nothing wrong with it, but if you want to do it yourself here is how. For this method you need a gas stove. I'm sure there are ways to do it in an oven or over an electric burner, but I don't know them. Sorry. Now, some methods for this tell you to turn the grate over your burner upside down. I never have and have never had a problem with it, but if you want to, go nuts. Put the pepper right on the grate and turn the heat up to med, med-high. I'm using an orange one but you can use whatever kind you like, green is traditional. The goal here is to blacken the entire skin of the pepper. Once one side is blackened, turn it with some tongs until the whole thing is all gross looking like this. Now wrap it loosely in some paper towels and let it sit for a couple minutes. This will make it steam itself and make the skin come off nice and easy. After a couple minutes pick up the whole package and gently rub the pepper. The skin should could sliding right off. You want to get as much blackened skin off as you can, it doesn't add anything good to the flavor. Note: This is just my opinion. My brother says he always leaves a little blackened skin on. He likes the bitter, but rich, tones. So, decide for yourself.If you have some spots of unblackened skin just cut them off when you chop the pepper. I haven't seen another jambalaya recipe that calls for roasted pepper, but I hate the strips of skin that are leftover in the rice after the peppers dissolve. And they will pretty much just dissolve, unless you chop it big. Even if you do chop large pieces a lot of it will still break down. But that's good because it means the whole dish is infused with pepper, or in this case roasted pepper, flavor. And that's some good stuff.

Ok, set the pepper aside and proceed to chop everything up. You don't need to worry too much about keeping everything the same size since it's all going to simmer for some time, it will all be plenty cooked. Now the above recipe says half a pound of sausage, but that's really a guess. I just use half of a package, a package being a little less than a pound. I like kielbasa in this recipe, but you can use any kind of sausage you like. I just cut the whole thing in half once, then again the other way (not worrying about exact proportions here), then into cube-like things. Give the chicken a similar treatment, but not too small or else it will break up while simmering. Of course, a bunch of shredded chicken in this wouldn't be bad at all. But I like chunks. You can use thighs if you want, I use breast. Onions are next. I usually make the onion pretty small so it mostly dissolves. With the pepper what you want to do is cut it in half. Then take the seeds and ribs out and the top off all the way around the stem. Now just cut it into strips and those into chunks. Careful, it gets pretty slippery. Now heat a medium sized pot over med-high heat. I never oil it, the kielbasa is going in first and it promptly puts out plenty of it's own grease. Brown the kielbasa up pretty well then remove it to a paper towel lined plate. There should be enough fat left in the pot for browning the rest of the ingredients. If there isn't, just use a little olive oil or butter when needed. Next the chicken goes in. Brown it, but don't worry about cooking it. Pull it out and put it on a ceramic plate, you want to save those juices. Next the onion goes in. Brown it. Once it's brown add the peppers and garlic. The peppers won't really brown because they are so juicy, but starting the flavors mingling is a good time. Plus it smells great. Pull out the vegetables and put them on the same plate as the chicken, they are all going back in at the same time. Now put in the rice. You can use non-brown rice, just adjust the liquid and time to how much it needs. Stir it around till it's slightly clear and has absorbed some fat. Pour in the chicken brothand scrape up all the brown bits. Now dump everything back in, make sure to get all the juices that the chicken and veggies put out. That's a lot of flavor in there. Put in all the spices. This part is a little tricky because I have found you need to add salt now or else it won't incorporate into the dish. But it is really hard to know how much you need. It depends on the broth you use, the type of sausage and you kind of just have to play it by ear. I often wind up adding too little, but that's less tragic than adding to much. Now stir it up and bring it to a boil. Once it hits a boil reduce the heat to low and cover it. Simmer it till the rice is cooked. This will take a lot longer than normal, I assume because of all the stuff in there. It usually takes me about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes or so. When it's done take out the bay leaf (or your girlfriend gives you one of those looks... well, at least mine does. Heh.), toss it in a bowl and eat it.