Liquid Gold, a Chicken Stock Redo

...and how to use it

In my last post I promised a redo of chicken stock and here it is. Later than I planned, purely because I had intended on making lots of summery things which used the chicken stock, but instead the last week or so has dragged me back into cold weather foods. Again. It’s getting a bit much, isn’t it, and I’m sick of the same old script. Gloomy, oppressive weather that saps the will to live? Check. Where is summer? Check. Illness in the house? Check. Need for soup? Check. Now, after several days when the rain has been so fiercely beating on my poor kitchen skylight I have had to abandon the kitchen table just so I can hear myself think, we are - JOY - in the midst of a mini heatwave before back to rain at the weekend. So I have made a couple of things with stock, which don’t involve soup (the soups, recipeless for now, are relegated to the end of this post). See below, but first, the stock.

(And just as a little aside, hot weather is good pressure cooking weather. If you have to cook you need to keep it to an absolute minimum if you don’t want an over heated kitchen.)

Chicken Stock - the main ingredient

To make the best value, from scratch chicken stock which isn’t dependent on saving up bones from cooking chickens (a rarity here now as so expensive), you need chicken carcasses or backs. They are superb for making very cheap vats of stocks. I know I have talked about these a lot but I have slightly changed the way I use them. The ones I use are free to roam/grass fed/soy free at the bare minimum and some are certified organic too. I am fussy about this, but it really does pay dividends in terms of nutrition and flavour, even if you don’t care about welfare (a surprising number of people don’t). Some butchers will give you these for nothing and will save them for you - but they will also tell you which day of the week is best - ie., the day they are usually breaking them down - for freshness. I say butchers usually give them away - they have to pay to dispose of their waste, and that is what chicken carcasses are if they can’t sell them. So you should always ask. Other butchers do charge, but the cost is minimal, often £1-2 for a tray of 6 carcasses. At my farmers market recently I paid £3 for 2, but they were very large indeed - equivalent to 6 much smaller ones and covered in meat.

Chicken Stock Economics

Before I get onto the how, here are some figures to consider. I am taking the example of the 2 large carcasses which I paid £3 for. They gave me 5 litres of stock and 450g cooked meat (the equivalent of 600g raw).

Comparing like with like - and I am looking at bare minimum free range products here - the cheapest pouch of free range chicken stock/broth currently available in the UK is Borough Bone Broth £11.25 for 1 litre - so £56 for 5 litres. And it is most usually available in 325ml pouches which would come in at £77. Most of the others come in at around £6-7 for 500ml. I am not looking at the pots and cubes available. They are all UPFs. Even the organic ones are mainly starch, emulsifiers and palm oil. Honestly? I would rather just use water.

Then there is the meat. The carcasses all have a lot of meat on them. The cost of free range chicken meat has risen sharply recently, so getting 600g of meat basically as a side product, when free range thigh fillets (the cheapest like for like) come in at anything between £13-20 per kilo is another big saving.

And there are chef’s perks

I think even if I didn’t make stock, these carcasses are worth buying because of the meat. The ones I get from the farmers market have the chicken oysters attached as well as an all over covering of flesh at least 1cm thick, often more. The chicken oysters, for those that don’t know, are oval shaped pieces of meat which fit snugly into the back on either side of the spine. Once cooked, they are thumbed out of their cavity, satisfyingly in one piece. They are very tender, have a dark meat flavour, and are traditionally a chef’s perk thing, which I deeply regret ever telling my children about because now they always want them. I don’t always share. One of my favourite things to do with these, apart from just sprinkle with salt and eat as is - is to save them up, bread them, and serve them with something mustard and tarragon - a more fragrant version of the dish Brad McDonald used to do at Lockhart.

The Method

So, before, how it would go with my stock making is that I would put the carcasses in the pressure cooker with any aromatics, cover with cold water, bring up to high pressure and remove from the heat. I would let it drop pressure naturally, then take the carcasses out of the liquid and strip off all the meat. Then I would return the carcasses back to the cooker and cook again, to make the stock.

I recently started off my chicken stock the usual way, but somehow - don’t ask me how, I don’t know - forgot to put in all the aromatics (more on these later). When I removed the carcasses I realised the colour of the stock was richer looking than I expected (at this point it has usually taken on colour from the onion skins I usually use) - and when I tried it, the chicken flavour was excellent - all it needed to be served as a broth was a little salt. So instead of using this liquid as the basis of my stock proper, which is what I would normally do, I strained and decanted it, returned the stripped carcasses to the pot and covered again with water. This time I did add aromatics - mainly trimmings - onion and garlic skins, leek and carrot trimmings, some pumpkin skin, celery and herbs - bay, thyme, tarragon, parsley. Then back up to high pressure, cook for 20 minutes then left to stand off the heat for an hour. By this point, a lot of the collagen had dissolved and even when cooled just to room temperature, the stock jellied.

So I got 2 lots of stock when I would usually have one. Plus the meat. With minimal cooking time too - the time it took to come up to pressure twice, plus 20 minutes on a very low heat the second time around.

So to recap - I was left with around 5 litres of well flavoured chicken stock, plenty of chicken fat and all the meat. The stock, once cooled, will keep in the fridge for a week and if you aren’t sure you will use it all, you can freeze it. The other thing you can do which is probably better if you have limited fridge/freezer space, is do the first batch, then freeze the carcass and wait until you have used up the first batch of stock before you make the second.

The fat is very good for you and can be used in place of oil or dripping for frying. And the meat - you will end up with a variety of brown/white meat, some in very large chunks, some tinier. But will work in just about everything you want to use cooked chicken in - chopped into sandwiches and salads, risotto, a very satisfying pasta bake, dropped into soup. So useful.

I think you will agree that this is supremely satisfying. It is something I do most weeks, even in summer, because even if I’m not making soups and casseroles, chicken stock will give extra flavour and nutritional content to so much else, even if I’m just using it in place of water for the children’s thermos lunch pastas and to cook all the other grains.

A couple of other optional points - you can salt the chicken carcasses before using them for the first time. This isn’t traditional in stock making, but the flavour of the meat will obviously be better if you do so, so I usually do. And if you don’t already do so, think about keeping a trimmings container in the freezer - you can add anything you would use for stock. Nothing that will go too bitter, or intensify too much flavourwise, or that will be starchy or sulphorous.

So, to recap:

Put (salted) carcasses into your pressure cooker. Cover with cold water. Bring up to high pressure and remove from the heat. Leave to drop pressure naturally, then remove the carcasses to strip off the meat. Decant the liquid.

Return the stripped carcasses to the cooker along with any aromatics you like. Cover with cold water again. Bring up to high pressure, adjust the heat until it is just high enough to maintain the pressure, then cook for 20 minute. Remove from the heat and leave to stand (and drop pressure) for an hour. Strain and decant into containers.

Now, a recipe or two….

I am working my way through lots of grains at the moment and the past week has focussed on freekah which I love for its smokiness. I find it works as an excellent base for all kinds of dishes. I’m giving you 2.5 here.

Sweetly Spiced Freekah with Chicken

This was a braise, using chicken stock. I steamed chicken on top - it is the best way to do it if you want it super tender and it gives you skin like parchment. You could use chicken leftover from stock if you prefer - just stir that in at the end.

4 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on

zest and juice of 1/2 lime

2 tsp Baharat spice (or similar)

2 tbsp olive oil

1 red onion, finely chopped

2 large carrots, cut into crescents

200g freekah, well rinsed

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

2 bay leaves

400ml chicken stock

1 small bunch parsley, finely chopped

1 tbsp za’atar

Sprinkle the chicken with salt and toss in the lime juice and zest and the spices. Heat your pressure cooker and add the olive oil. Add the onion and carrot and saute for a minute or two, before stirring in the drained freekah and garlic. Stir until the freekah has toasted, then add the spices and bay leaves. Season with salt and pepper, then pour in the chicken stock. Stir to deglaze. Put a trivet in the cooker with the steamer basket on top. Add the chicken. Close the lid and bring up to high pressure. Cook for 12 minutes, then leave to drop pressure naturally.

Remove the chicken from the steamer basket and remove the trivet. Pull the chicken into strips, discarding the bone, cartilage and any thick pieces of skin. Fold into the freekah. Place a teatowel on top of the pressure cooker and place the lid back on top. Leave to stand for a few minutes, just as you would for rice. Stir through the parsley and sprinkle with za’atar before serving.

I served this with a few side salads, and my son insisted on raita too -

• courgettes were seared in olive oil in the pressure cooker, cooked for zero minutes with a little added garlic and lemon juice, then fast released and tossed in oil, lemon zest and basil.

• Oranges were segmented (cut away from their membranes, holler if you need instruction on how to do this), and tossed with some not very good black olives I had and leaves and dressed in a dressing made from the squeezed orange peel, sherry vinegar and olive oil.

• Apricots were brushed with olive oil and runny honey, grilled very briefly, then mixed with sliced radishes and tomatoes. With some lemon thyme and a lemon, sherry and olive oil dressing with a very few drops of rosewater. Be very sparing with the rose water. And a few lemon verbena leaves for decoration.

These were all in quite small quantities as they were all leftovers/things I needed to use up. (Eg, apricots a bit soft, trying to get through a dodgy jar of black olives, bought in an emergency for recipe testing, oranges starting to dessicate).

A Leftover Freekah/Shakshuka Thing

If you happen to have any leftover freekah, you can add it to this, which fills it out a bit (I am always trying to get wholegrain carbs into my 14 year old). This is based a shakshuka - I have a recipe for one in Modern Pressure Cooking, but basically, this was a quick saute of red onion, courgette, pumpkin, peppers (there were going to be merguez sausages but they had gone off), spices (caraway, cumin, cinnamon, whatever you like), some tomato puree, some leftover freekah and a splash of water. Bring up to high pressure, cook for 3 minutes and leave to drop pressure naturally. Make wells and break in eggs, then leave to simmer, covered until cooked, or bring up to high pressure, remove from the heat, leave to stand for 30 seconds then fast release the remaining pressure. Sprinkle with herbs.

And finally, the salad at the top of this post. I cooked a separate batch of freekah for this one. I had over ripe flat nectarines and cherries which needed to use up - I had intended to use blackberries which I have started picking here. You could use peaches, apricots, whatever is good.

Chicken and Freekah Salad with Nectarines and Cherries

75g freekah

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

150ml chicken stock

200g cooked chicken

150g green beans, cooked for zero minutes, fast release

1 small fennel bulb, very finely sliced

4 generous handfuls salad leaves

1/2 cucumber, cut into crescents

3-4 flat nectarines or peaches, or 2 large of either or 4 apricots

20 cherries, pitted and halved (you could use blackberries instead)

For the dressing:

2 tbsp olive oil

Leaves from a few sprigs tarragon, finely chopped

1 tsp tarragon or Dijon mustard

juice of 1/2 lime

2 tsp white balsamic vinegar

A few drops rosewater (optional, be very sparing)

First cook the freekah - rinse well, then drain. Heat your pressure cooker and add the oil. Add the freekah and stir until very aromatic, then stir in the spices and season with salt and pepper. Pour over the stock. Bring up to high pressure then reduce the heat so it is just high enough to maintain the pressure and cook for 10-12 minutes (10 slightly al dente, 12 softer, close to bursting). Leave to drop pressure naturally, then open, place a tea towel over the top and leave to cool. Fluff up.

Whisk all the salad dressing ingredients together. Put the chicken in a bowl and drizzle over a tablespoon of the salad dressing. Toss. Arrange the salad leaves, beans, fennel and freekah in 4 bowls and dress with the remaining salad dressing. Top with the fruit and chicken. Finish with a few herbs.

And the soups….

I am happy to send recipes for these to anyone who asks -

2 variations on chicken noodle - one with some frozen Thai curry paste and coconut, another brothier affair with lots of ginger and garlic and leftover vegetables. Another using up some chicken meaet and leftover red cabbage and beetroot from a salad - had a bit of a borscht/solyanka vibe.

Red chicken soup

I cooked a ham with split peas for a 2 for 1 (the recipe for this is in my newest, not yet out book, Everyday Pressure Cooking) and threw in a scotch bonnet, for heat.

Ham and split pea soup