STOCK – Made with Chicken and Beef Bones and More

I woke up this morning to the wonderful aroma of stock simmering on the stove. It’s been simmering for 14 hours and I intend to let it do so for another 5 or 6 hours. After a total of 19 or 20 hours, great flavor and lots of bone-building minerals and collagen will have leached out of the bones and into the stock.

I’m really obsessed with making stock making these days! It’s so healthy! And it brings me back to the days when my mom made stock in the “deep well” in our gas stove and my grandmother made a clear chicken soup (stock) flavored with dill for every family gathering.

I am excited to share with you my basic bone stock recipe and and a few tips that I have picked up from reading and experimenting these past few weeks.

RECIPE FOR STOCK

• 1 part bones
• 1 part vegetable “formula” (shown below)
• A few additions (shown below)
• Cold filtered tap water to cover contents of pot with 2 inches of water

Note: I use a mixture of bones. In the stock pictured below, I had beef marrow bones, oxtails, chicken backs, and chicken necks. In the future, I would like to add knuckle bones and also chicken feet because they are excellent sources of collagen (which my doctor who is an expert in osteoporosis says is good for bones, though I have not found much literature on this yet). And, if available, I get bones from grass-fed beef and the most humanely raised chickens that have not been given antibiotics or hormones.

For 16 cups of finished stock, I used: 1.5 pounds chicken backs and necks, 1.5 pounds beef marrow bones, and 1 pound oxtails.

Beef marrow bone

VEGETABLE FORMULA

2 parts yellow organic onions
Note: I remove and discard the first layer of the brownish onion peel. Then I remove the inner layer(s) of the brownish onion peel and toss those into my stock pot. Next, cut off the two ends of the peeled onion, and then roughly chop the onion.
1 part carrot, sliced
1 part celery (including the flavorful leaves), sliced

For 16 cups of finished stock, I used: 1 large onion, 3 medium carrots, 2 stalks celery.

Onion skin goes in too!

ADDITIONS
The amounts of these additional ingredients should be proportional to the quantity of stock you are making.

Bay leaves
Whole black peppercorns
Organic lemon, cut in half with seeds removed. Squeeze the juice into the pot, and toss the remaining lemon halves into the pot. Lemon peel is nutritious and flavorful! If you do not have an organic lemon, you can use apple cider vinegar. Note: The lemon (or vinegar) adds acid which helps leech the calcium and other minerals out of the bones – and does not give a lemony or vinegary flavor – unless you use too much.

For 16 cups of finished stock, I used: 1 fresh organic lemon (and next time I’ll try 2 lemons), 2 large bay leaves, and 6 whole peppercorns.

Lemon helps to leech minerals from bones!

DIRECTIONS for making stock — could not be easier — all you need is a big pot and patience

• Bring the contents of the pot to a boil.
• Turn the heat down to a simmer and let the pot simmer, covered, for about 20 hours.  Note: If you do not want to leave the pot simmering on the stove, you can always put it in the oven. For a discussion on the correct oven temperature for simmering stock, see Chowhound. Or if you prefer, use a slow cooker as they do for this chicken stock recipe.
• When the stock has been simmering for hours and the marrow bones will give up their marrow easily, insert a chopstick or blunt knife into the marrow and let the marrow slide out and into the stock.
• When the cooking time is up, remove the bones, most of which will not have much meat on them anymore. I used a pair of thin tongs to remove the dainty chicken bones, but next time I might just tie the chicken (or at least the chicken necks) up in cheesecloth so I would not have to fish out all those little neck bones.
• Pick the remaining meat off the bones and add it back to the pot, or if you wish, reserve the meat for another use.
• Remove the bay leaves, lemon halves, and onion peel, and discard after you have squeezed the stock out of the lemon halves. (See tip below.)
• In the interest of food safety, cool the stock down as quickly as possible (See “Cool Your Stock” shown below.)
• Refrigerate the stock in glass containers, for no more than 2 or 3 days. For longer storage, freeze.
• Right before you are ready to use the stock, remove the layer of fat on top of the stock. (If stock is frozen, warm it just a little in microwave so you can remove the fat.)

The stock making directions in this post do NOT make a clear stock. If you want a clear stock, you need to modify the directions so that you:
SKIM THE FOAM(scum) that forms at the top of the simmering soup and discard the foam. (I read that contrary to wham a lot of chefs say, the foam doesn’t have an affect on the flavor…and since I can’t find any effect, I don’t skim it off.)
Simmer stock UNCOVERED and add water as needed.
STRAIN OUT all the vegetables and REMOVE the meat.

DIRECTIONS FOR COOLING AND STORING STOCK – be sure to read!
Since stock is a nutrient rich medium (a great place for bacteria to flourish), so it’s important to cool your stock quickly.

COOL YOUR STOCK
For food safety reasons, cool your stock quickly! To do this, I  put empty glass storage bowls into a big pan. Then I add ice cubes to the pan scattering them around the bowls. Next I ladle the hot soup into the bowls. Then, I pour cold water over the ice to make an ice-water bath that the bowls with the soup sit in.  After about 1 minute, I stir the stock. After another minute or two, I stir it again, and let it sit until it’s cool enough to refrigerate or freeze.

And when I make a lot of stock at one time – and I mean a lot (about 10 quarts), putting even warm stock into the refrigerator and freezer, is not that great for the refrigerator or freezer ,and it will temporarily raise the temperature of the refrigerator so it’s a bit higher than the safe temperature (40 degrees F and under). That’s not a great idea. So what to do?

So here’s a nifty trick: Throw a few ice cubes of frozen stock from your freezer into each bowl of your freshly made stock that’s been cooled by the method I’ve just described. And, if you are making stock for the first time, use ice cubes of store-bought chicken or beef broth. This ice cube trick helps bring the stock temperature down even more before you freeze it. Just one word of caution about this ice cube trick… For food safety: Always make your ice cubes out of a fresh batch of your homemade stock or an unopened container of store bought broth!

Cool hot food QUICKLY for food safety!

STORE STOCK IN REFRIGERATOR OR FREEZER
Cover the cooled stock and and refrigerate the stock, for no more than 2 or 3 days.
For longer storage, freeze.

I like to have small portions of stock available for later – to use in cooking or as a base for making a single serving of soup. So I always freeze some of the stock in silicone muffin pans. Details of how I do this are given in the post, Silicone Muffin Pans – A Kitchen Staple – But Not For Baking!

NOTES

• Remove the layer of fat on top of your stock right before you are ready to consume the stock as is or use it in cooking.
• Some people make stock in a slow cooker (crock pot) and others make it in a pressure cooker.

MORE INFORMATION

• Chowhound discussion board:  information about making chicken stock ,  making chicken broth from bones ,and beef bones used for stock.
• International variations on chicken stock recipes: whats4eats.
• Tips on making chicken stock, see About.com.
• Chicken feet – for making stock that’s full of gelatin and extra delicious. Here’s how to prep chicken feet for your stock pot.
• Beef – recipe based on Michael Ruhlman’s stock recipe as given in his book, Ratio.

WHAT CAN I DO WITH STOCK?
Just about everything! In upcoming posts, I’ll tell you what I’m doing with mine…

QUINOA: Plain and Simple Quinoa

Ingredients

1 cup quinoa

• Why quinoa? How does quinoa help to prevent cancer?

1 1/4 cold filtered water

Note: Most package directions say to add twice as much water as quinoa, but that results in soggy quinoa — not what you want. If you use less water, it’s so much better. Lieberman and O’Connor, authors of The 10 Things You Need to Eat (a good primer on 10 healthy foods and creative ways you can use them in cooking;  published in 2010)  say that you should use just one and a quarter cups water to one cup of quinoa. I tried cooking quinoa their way (after cooking with too much water for a long time) and voila, great quinoa! Finally light and fluffy, not heavy and soggy!

Directions #1 – for cooking quinoa to serve as a hot side dish

• Unless the package says that the quinoa has already been rinsed, rinse the quinoa in cold water until the water runs clear, and this may take five or more changes of water. It helps to use your hands and rub the quinoa grains against each other as you rinse them. Rinsing removes the outer slightly bitter, soapy coating. Drain the quinoa.
• Place the rinsed and drained quinoa and the water in a heavy pot (for example, an enamel coated cast iron pot). Bring the water to a simmer. Reduce the heat to the lowest possible setting and then cover the pot.
• Cook covered, for 20-25 minutes, or until the quinoa is tender but still chewy and a white spiral-like thread appears around each grain.
• Uncover the pot and fluff the cooked quinoa with a fork.
• Let the cooked quinoa sit for a few minutes (to let off steam) before serving.

Directions #2 – for cooking quinoa to serve in a salad

This preparation makes for fluffy and dry quinoa which is what you need to absorb the dressing and give flavor to the salad.

• Place the drained quinoa into a pan and add water to cover the quinoa by about 2 inches. Bring the water to a boil and then boil gently for 8 minutes.
• Drain the quinoa in a sieve and rinse under cold running water.
• Place the sieve with the drained quinoa over a pan of boiling water, making sure that the quinoa does not touch the water. Cover the sieve with a kitchen towel and then place the lid on the pan.
• Bring the water in the pan to a gentle boil and boil for about 10 minutes – steaming the quinoa.
• Note: Check the water level in the pan after about 5 minutes to make sure there’s enough water to boil for the remaining time; if not, add more.

Directions #3 – Quick and easy – my new favorite way to cook quinoa!

• After a friend told me she always cooks quinoa in her rice cooker, I gave it a try. Wow, it worked! I’m going to make it this way from now on! By the way, I used 1 cup of dry quinoa to 1 3/4 cups water.

What to do with quinoa?

• How about a plate of quinoa topped with pasta sauce and some veggies on the side? Yesterday, while foraging in the refrigerator at home, my daughter fixed herself the plate of food you see pictured at the top of this page: quinoa topped with pasta sauce and topped with quinoa, shitake mushrooms (just reconstituted shitakes), and steamed frozen asparagus.
• Mix cooked quinoa with Sundried Tomato Flavor Cubes or Sauted Herb Flavor Cubes – yum!
• For a powerhouse breakfast, mix cooked quinoa with cooked steel-cut oatmeal, add some almond or skim milk plus all the fixings. A great breakfast – or snack. Just keep cooked quinoa and cooked steel-cut oatmeal in your refrigerator, and you can fix a bowl of this delicious and nutritious quin-oat porridge anytime!
• Here’s the Quinoa and Black Bean Salad recipe I served at a recent picnic – a big hit! I made my quinoa salad exactly as the recipe recommends, except without the pickled jalapeno chilies. In general, pickled foods should not be part of an anti-cancer diet. Although Dr. Servan-Schreiber does not talk about pickled foods in his book (he can’t cover everything!), it’s been know for a long time that picked foods increase the risk of developing stomach cancer. In fact, for an epidemiology class in graduate school, I even did a paper on that very topic back in the 1970′s! See Medline Plus for information on stomach cancer and it’s risk factors.

Can you freeze quinoa?

Yes, definitely. Cooked quinoa freezes very well.

More information about quinoa

Quinoa.net A great site for more information about quinoa, including cooking directions for the microwave and rice cooker as well as the stove top (uses more water than I suggest, but you might like that better). In addition, great photos of the people who plant and harvest the quinoa you enjoy.

Enjoy and be healthy!

Leni