Fortified Brown Chicken Stock

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Once you roast the bones and carcasses from whole chickens to make your own brown chicken stock, you can store the liquid gold in quart containers and freeze it for whenever you want to use some down the road. Use the biggest pot you have at home, and try to make a gallon or two at a time.

Ingredients

8 lbs chicken bones
4 large white onions (roughly chopped)
6 carrots (roughly chopped)
12 stalks celery (roughly chopped)
2 cloves garlic (still in their skin)
3-4 Tbsp vegetable oil
3 Tbsp white wine
2 gallons water ((or use chicken stock here, if you want to make an even stronger “Double Stock”))
4 bay leaves
6 sprigs thyme
6 sprigs parsley
20 black peppercorns (crushed roughly with the back of a knife )

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450F.
Coat the chicken bones, onion, carrots, celery, and garlic cloves in the vegetable oil and roast in the oven until the bones are golden brown, rotating the bones and vegetables every 15 minutes.
If the garlic cloves in their skins take on too much color, remove them from the oven.
When the bones are roasted and golden brown, remove the bones and vegetables from the oven and place the bones in a large stock pot.
Reserve the roasted vegetables in a bowl for later.
Use the white wine to deglaze the roasting pan and pour the drippings and deglazing liquid into the stock pot with the roasted bones.
Add the water (or chicken stock, if making a “Double Stock”), and bring to a simmer.
Add the bay leaves, thyme sprigs, parsley sprigs, and crushed black peppercorns to the pot.
Reduce heat to medium-low, so the liquid is gently simmering, and allow to cook for 3 hours.
While the chicken bones are infusing in the stock, regularly skim off the scum and discard the fat that rises to the top of the pot.
After the chicken bones have cooked for 3 hours, add the roasted vegetables from earlier and allow the mixture to cook for an additional 90 minutes.
Strain out the liquid from the solids and allow to cool.
Use stock to make a delicious soup! Or reduce it down further to make demi-glace or glace, which can serve as an incredibly flavorful base for a wonderful pan sauce.

Notes

If you don’t plan to use the stock immediately, freeze for later use.
A “Double Stock” is just a stock you make using chicken stock as the base, instead of water. What you end up with is an incredibly fortified and collagen-heavy chicken stock, with loads of flavor.