Chicken stock.

There is not much in the kitchen that's as important as a decent stock. I would suggest that a well made stock is just as important as a sharp knife. There are some decent premade specimens available at the grocery store, and more than a few that are little more than colored salt water. When you make your own, however, you know just what's going in there.

Let's cover one thing first. Your stock pot is not a garbage can. I'm not accusing anyone of anything, but some people acquire bad habits in the kitchen. That pot is not for the little bits and bobs of stuff that you don't know how to use. Instead, use a few simple, relatively inexpensive ingredients, and open yourself up to the world as it could be if you don't mind babysitting a slow cooker for an afternoon.

We begin with the veggies. Today, we're making mirapoix, which consists of three aromatic vegetables; onions, celery, and carrots. By weight, you want equal amounts of carrots and celery, and enough onions to equal the weight of the celery and carrots. If you're making chicken or beef stock (or veal or turkey or bison, et cetera) you want your meat roughly equal in weight to your veg. By which I mean; one pound of beef bones (or whatever meat product you want to use), one pound of veggies consisting of half a pound of onions, four ounces of carrot and four ounces of celery.

 

The importance of a good sous-chef cannot be understated.

Wash all your vegetables. Why do we do that? Imagine, if you will, the fields upon which the vegetables are grown. You see it? Acre after acre of lovely green stuff. Idyllic, no? Where's the bathroom? It's not there, is it? What about hand washing facilities? No? Wash your veggies.

Peel your carrots. If you leave the skins on your stock will be cloudy. Chop your peeled carrots into roughly the same size, say a medium dice. Or, if you're feeling lazy, throw in some baby carrots. I'd give them a rough chop first, though. They'll give up their flavor better that way.

Your celery needs to be clear of any motes of dirt. Chop up the same amount, again by weight, as your carrots into a similarly sized dice.

Do you remember our veggie ratio? Yes! As much onion as it takes to equal the weight of the carrots and the celery. It's ok to go a little over or under if you don't feel like chopping a quarter of an onion.

Now that that's done, we have the makings of a respectable veggie stock. If that's what you want, feel free to not pay attention to the upcoming anatomy lesson. 

That said, today we're making chicken stock.

You might have heard about what's the best cut for stock. Some people like the wings. Others prefer to use the carcass, which is the torso that's left over when you break down your bird. I've used them both. Those will make a very good product, but there is another cut. A more flavorful one. And it's a little out there.

 

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? A cry for help?

Friends, I give you the chicken paw. Take a good look at it. It has the most collagen available in the bird, and that means flavor, friends. It's also usually not available at your average supermarket. If you're lucky enough to live in an area with an Asian market, go there. Chances are you'll find these bad boys in the meat case. If they don't have the paws, they might have the feet.

What?

Yes, there's a difference. Chicken paws are cut off below the ankle. Chicken feet include the shank. Either will give you a beautiful product with an unctuous, savory flavor of actual chicken.

Weigh out your paws to roughly the same weight as your veggies. Rinse them well. Inspect them for anything that does not belong there, and, yes, the toenails do belong there.

Everything in the slow cooker, along with a teaspoon of whole peppercorns and three dry bay leaves. You might notice that I am not putting any salt in. Put a pin in that, we'll get back to that at the end. Cover your edibles with water, about two to two and a half quarts. I like to use filtered water because I think stock should taste like its ingredients, not your plumbing. Put the lid on, turn it on high, and let it do its thing. You don't need to lift the lid or stir it. Don't get me wrong, you can if you want to. There's really no reason, though. Flavor extraction will run apace irrespective of agitation.

Just add water.

Come back in about three hours. Give it a taste. It should taste, well, chickeny. Because you used the slow cooker with the lid, you won't have lost much liquid to reduction. If it's not chickeny enough, give it another half hour, but not too long. You don't want to cook off your flavors.

Let's get back to the salt. You're making an ingredient here. Any salt you put in now will be salt that's going to be in future applications, and if you're following a recipe, you might throw off your salt levels.

Which brings me to one of the basic rules of the kitchen - taste as you go. Five minutes before serving is too late to fix the cayenne pepper. If you take a small taste at every stage, you'll be able to make adjustments before your mistakes (lean into them, they'll happen regardless) get away from you.

So, now our stock is cooked and ready to go. What do we do now?

...TO BE CONTINUED

You gotta be kidding me.