Katherine Hall

Stock’s away! Ahem. I could probably think of many more stock-related puns, but I think I’ll stop now. And I won’t ask Alex or we’ll be here all week.

I like making stock. I’m not talking about stock photography, I can’t be bothered with that. I like making liquid stock from bones. I wasn’t going to mention cooking very much here, but several people have remarked on my stock-making habit, so perhaps it’s worth covering.

We have roast chicken occasionally, and when we do, I always use the stripped carcass to make stock. It’s really simple to do and massively tasty in risotto, amongst other things. Putting chicken remains in a big pot with some onion, celery, other veg and herbs and boiling it for as long as you can stand (1-2 hours) is rather satisfying. It makes our house smell of nothing but chicken for several hours, but the results are wonderful. I usually get 8 plastic tubs of stock to put in the freezer. I can only make more when the last lot is used up, we don’t have room otherwise.

So there you have it, stock. It doesn’t take much work and goes a long way. Even the remains look quite tasty:

The foxes love ripping our bin bags apart on Thursdays to get at this stuff. You don’t have to. Come round for risotto some time instead. Toodle pip.

Tags: Cooking, food, project