Need help with chicken soup of all things

silvine

Hi,
I made a chicken tonight and want to make chicken soup tomorrow. However, any time I've tried using the carcass the stock always end ups all fat and greasy.

Can anyone here provide a good, fool-proof recipe?

Dizzyblonde

Let the stock cool completely overnight and just remove the fat from the top? I use raw chicken joints to make my chicken soup because I find that pre-roasted chicken is too greasy.

magconn

use knorr stockpot things. theyre new and theyre great. Kinda like stock squeezed into gelatenous little tubs, just drop 1 or 2 into the soup mix and wa-hey

The Sweeper

Put the carcass, with all skin, bones and bits, into clean, cold water. Add one large onion in quarters, or two small ones in halves. Add a carrot, in four pieces. Throw in a whole stick of celery, broken into four pieces. Add a bay leaf. Throw in about 10 whole peppercorns. Don't add any salt. If you can buy things from your supermarket like a packet of chicken necks, throw in about 10 of those.

Bring to the barest boil - just a few bubbles is enough - and then reduce to a gentle simmer for around two hours.

Turn off the heat and allow the stock to cool in the pot. Then strain (if you want very clear stock, strain through a muslin-lined sieve). You can reduce the strained stock down if you want by returning it to the pot and simmering for longer. Either way, put your cool, finished stock into the fridge. A white skin of fat will form overnight, just take this off with a spoon. If you reduced your stock, you now have a bowl of chicken flavoured jelly. If not, a bowl of chicken flavoured liquid.

The jelly form is good - when cooking with it, I use no other fats. If I want to sweat some onions, I sweat them in a non-stick pan with a tablespoon or two of the jelly stock - it dissolves into liquid as it heats.

Your stock will normally have some fat in it, but it shouldn't be 'greasy' per se, unless you're getting a lot of oil from the original roasting into it if you're using a roast carcass?

joseph brand

silvine wrote: »

Hi,
I made a chicken tonight and want to make chicken soup tomorrow. However, any time I've tried using the carcass the stock always end ups all fat and greasy.

Can anyone here provide a good, fool-proof recipe?

http://www.channel4.com/food/on-tv/cookalong-live/cookalong-live-the-series/week-5/how-to-make-chicken-stock_p_1.html

Ramsay shows how it's done. Use a ladle to get rid of fat and impurities. See video.

Miaireland

Make sure you remove all skin from the chicken before you start.

Minder

Why?

Dizzyblonde

Miaireland wrote: »

Make sure you remove all skin from the chicken before you start.

I have to disagree, I find it doesn't have the same flavour at all if you remove the skin.

Miaireland

I find it is a lot less greasy when you do so.

Minder

I find that allowing the stock to cool and then storing it in the fridge overnight leaves a thin layer of fat on the top - easily spooned off. Also, iirc,the collagen in the skin is where the gelatin comes from that makes the stock set and become wobbly.