Homemade chickenstock

As promised at the post: Oriental chicken soup, hereby the recipe of a really delicious chicken stock. And when you've made it once,  you notice you don't need all the additives that are added with a store bought bouillon tablet. And maybe you think throwing away all the vegetables and chicken is such a waste. We just don't throw it away, but reuse it. The vegetables become chickenfeed (and they love it) and the chicken is reused in chicken soup or when we stir-fry. You can store it perfectly in the freezer.

You can freeze chicken stock very well. If you use a lot of small quantities you can freeze it the same way when you would make ice cubes. But I'm using a lot of larger quantities and I freeze it in freezer containers at exactly 250 mL. That way I always can use chicken stock when I need it. 

Ingredients:

• 3 onions, peeled;
• 3 cloves;
• 3 carrots;
• 3 leeks;
• 2 celery sticks;
• 1 whole chicken, about 2 kg;
• bunch of thyme;
• 4 stems parsley,
• 1 bay leave;
• 6 cloves garlic;
• 1 teaspoons salt;
• 10 pepper corn;
• 2500 milliliters water.

Materials:

• Soup pan, at least 6 liters;
• Rope.

Preparation: 
Rinse the chicken under water. Cut two onions in quarters. Stab the cloves in the third onion. Wash the leek and cut in quarters. Scrape the carrots and quarter. Peel the garlic cloves. Wash the celery sticks.
Put the chicken in the soup pan. Add the vegetables and herbs. Poor the water in the pan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for an hour. With a slotted spoon remove the fat that will float on top of the soup. Remove the chicken (let it cool down, remove the flesh and freeze in small portions or use it immediately) and simmer for another 1.5 hours.
Sieve the stock. Put the pan in cold water to fasten the cool down of the stock. The stock is ready and can be stored or used.

Tips and tricks: 

• A simple way to bind the herbs: Take an outer leaf of a leek (one you would throw away anyway. On one half lay the thyme, parsley and bay leave. Fold the other half around and tie the rope;
• The pepper corns are easy to keep together when you put them in a tea bag. If you want to use the vegetables as chickenfeed, you can simply remove the pepper;
• If you don't have a slotted spoon you can remove the fat on top of the stock by using a normal spoon.

4Pure: chicken stock