O Chicken Stock – cheep cheep!

I’ve been making chicken stock for Hannah’s chicken porridge for a while now. The purpose of using chicken stock is to enhance the flavour of the porridge.

Instead of using whole chicken ($$$), I use chicken bones (around $1++ per pack from NTUC). The recipe is very simple:

Ingredients

Chicken bones (2 packs from NTUC or any other supermarket)

Carrot (1 stick, peeled and cut into chunks)

Celery (2-3 stalks, cut into chunks)

Old ginger (3-4 thick slices)

Garlic (3-4 cloves, peeled and crushed)

Method

1) Prepare the vegetables and put them into the clay pot of a slow cooker.

2) Cut away the fats from the chicken bones (it is easier to do this with a pair of scissors). Rinse them under a running tap and put them into the clay pot.

3) Fill up the clay pot with hot water to 1 inch below the brim.

4) Cover and cook on ‘high’ for 2.5-3 hours.

5) After 2.5-3 hours, lift out the clay pot and uncover it to cool down to room temperature.

6) Filter the stock with a sieve.

7) Filter the stock again with a coffee filter to remove fine particles and oil.

8) Pack the stock into individual sandwich-sized plastic bags to be kept in the freezer for future use. (I’d measure 250 ml of stock for each bag as that is the amount I use for cooking Hannah’s porridge. The capacity of my slow cooker allows for 6 bags of chicken stock to be made each time.)

BTW, I cool down the bags in the lower compartment further before storing them in the freezer. In this way, other foods kept in the freezer will have a lesser chance of spoiling due to an increase in temperature caused by the bags of chicken stock. Another thing which I find helpful is to avoid wetting the surface of the bags as it will cause ice to form and makes it harder to remove a bag for cooking.

Sometimes, I’d throw in leftover vegetables from my fridge. Almost any vegetable can enhance the taste of the stock. And in this way, nothing is wasted :)