chicken stock
I love making chicken stock. It means there’s a really excellent meal coming in the next day or so, and whilst it bubbles away the whole house smells of divine chickeniness.
Using our friend from earlier in the week, all the leftovers were tossed into a roasting tray with some assorted veg: celery, carrots, onions and any other oddity that was clogging up the fridge. That’s the beauty of stock; it doesn’t really matter what goes in there, they each add their own interesting note to it. If I’ve got a marmesan rind knocking about that’ll go in, in this case some spare pancetta and a couple of tomatoes were the guest stars.
After about half an hour’s roasting it all goes in a pot, covered with water and boiled for maybe an hour and a half, the timing’s not terribly important. When it’s cooled it’s strained off then left covered in the fridge. The best stocks wobble like a loose jelly when chilled. This one had a pleasing little jiggle to it.
Now, what to do with it?