roasted chicken and chicken stock




Brined roasting chicken from Trader Joe's. Cost: $15.00. And that's a bit on the high side. It's organic. I suppose. I do not think it is free range. I think Whole Foods has them for less. I'm not sure.


Baked in a glass bowl with a glass lid (that fits another bowl). I used one of those steaming platforms that spreads out like an umbrella to fit various pots. The central post of mine is broken off. I think that I did that on purpose after I bought it. 

This cooked on low for too long then on higher temperature to brown for too long. I thought that I put the chicken in the bowl upside down so internal liquid would settle in the breast, or at least pass through it, but I had it right side up by mistake.

The breast meat is very dry and unpleasant.

I ate all the crisp skin because it will never be this good as it is right now.









The breast meat is soaking in the liquid that drained while roasting. Hopefully that will make it more moist. Usually all this liquid would go into the stock pot. But not this time. Because the breast is so dry.


These bags are all the bones from previous chicken consumed since the last time. Mostly femurs from thighs. There are bones from two whole ducks, and some bones with meat that was not roasted. 

The bones are all stuffed into this pressure pot that has three quarts of water. It's top to bottom of bones broken open with pliers. This will be an incredibly dense chicken and duck stock. There are no vegetables. Just bones and their marrow. 


Edit: Three quarts of water went into this pot, filling it to 3/4 mark. Then all the collected bones. Closed and pressure cooked. This whole pot strained out to exactly three quarts of exceedingly dark stock. Three times darker than the best tasting stock from organic and free-range chickens purchased from Tony's. Their stocks really are superior to everything else that I purchased. And this stock is 3X better. In color, in aspic, in fat content, and in taste.

There were a few tablespoons beyond the three quarts. I lifted the whole pot to my lips and drank it. Expecting weak and incomplete flavor. The stock is amazingly flavorful. No salt, no additional seasonings. Nothing but bones and scraps. It's awesome. I cannot say that it's liquid gold. It's brown. It's the best stock that I've made so far. And I have three full quarts of it. Plus half a quart of much weaker Tony's. And Tony's is twice as strong as you buy in cartons. And I'm not complaining about commercial stock. I buy it, and it's quite good. But this is a whole different magnitude of order and the comparisons are just unfair. 

At Thanksgiving, if you have a turkey and you don't use the turkey carcass for stock, then you're doing this whole cooking thing incompletely.

2 comments:

vza said...

Have you tried Bundt Pan Chicken, Chip? Not bad.

http://coffeetococktail.com/bundt-pan-roasted-chicken/

Chip Ahoy said...

What a great idea.

Those pans are heavy. I think.

And they make some great designs too, like mountain ridges, roses, football stadium, and steam punk.

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