PPS - I also dislocate the wings, straighten them out, and bring them to the back of the chicken and hook them around each other. Hard to explain, easy to do. Then the wing tips, instead of drying out, get a head start cooking in the pan juices, and the meaty parts are very succulent.

Spatchcocking/butterflying does work well, but I'm usually just trying to get the darn thing in the oven so I can get a glass of wine and put my feet up for a minute.

PS - I do use chickens that have been made with a special sauce, like curry, but just make sure I use that stock to make a compatible dish. Rice cooked in curry stock is delicious, pinto beans cooked in BBQ stock, etc.

The important thing is not to use a ton of water. Just to cover, then mush the bones down to keep them covered as the stock reduces. It's easier to store small amounts of more concentrated stock.

I also make beef stock. Roast the marrow bones, eat the marrow as a meal with parsley salad, etc., and then make the remains into stock.

I have it down to a science. I roast in a pot that can go on the stovetop, and use vegetables (usually outer stalks of celery and elderly carrots) as a "rack." The chicken is usually dressed with aromatics. I may or may not use pan drippings in gravy or another part of the meal, or save a portion of that goodness for another meal. After dinner, the chicken is picked right out of the pot, and I add water to cover with a splash of cider vinegar, wine, or lemon juice, plus any additional aromatics and any veggie scraps or excess bones I've saved for the purpose.

When you smell it cooking, that's the flavor escaping. I keep it tightly covered and, instead of cooking for a long time, simmer for an hour or two, cool, and either strain then, or ideally refrigerate the whole pot overnight. The next evening, simmer again for an hour or two - and this is a very low simmer.

Then let cool just a bit, and strain through a regular sieve directly into these:

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These can go into the freezer if necessary, and the gelled stock slides out so nicely.

Or, if I know I'm going to make something specific with it, just strain it into the pot I'll be using for that. In that case I *do* use a finer filter.

I do not skim while cooking, skim fat, or (usually) use a fine filter. It all settles out, and the fat rises to the top, making an airtight seal. This method produces a hard gel, so when I'm using the stock, I'll just scoop off the fat and scoop out the amount of stock I need. At the bottom of the glass is a thin layer of schmutz that slices off and that the dog loves. The fat goes into the freezer for schmaltz emergencies, and if it's winter and I'm roasting a lot of chickens, there will be enough to use in confit after a couple of weeks. Not super serious confit, but one to be made and eaten the same week - maybe some hearts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also use a rotisserie chicken. I get about 8 cups of stock from it. I throw in whatever we have -- onions, carrots, celery and a bay leaf. Put it in the slow cooker overnight and done.

I am hanging my head in shame that I never thought to use the slow cooker.

Can anyone think of any reason - at all - why this wouldn't work?

Slow cooker works great for stock if you are only using 1 or 2 carcasses. The only reason I stopped using it is because it wasn't big enough to do as much stock as I wanted at once! I got a 12 qt stockpot, into which I can fit 4 or 5, up to 7 chicken carcasses and miscellaneous parts, plus veggies, at once. I simmer it about 12 hours, and I get 8-10 qts of nicely concentrated, gelled stock this way, which I dilute upon use to yield up to 20 qts from one stock-making session. This way I only have to make stock a few times a year.

I almost always butterfly and roast whole chickens, so I save the backbones in a freezer bag. I have a whole bag right now waiting to be combined with other chicken parts (my local Korean market sells chicken necks or feet in a big package - perfect for stock).

If you haven't tried roasting butterflied chickens before, it will change your life. The chicken is always done in under an hour and cooks more evenly since everything is on the same level. Also, all the skin is on top and helps baste the meat to make it extra moist.

Anonymous wrote:A few more things:

1) If there was BBQ sauce on the chicken (or curry, or any kind of flavored sauce), you're not going to want to use that. It'll change the flavor of the stock. Just plain chicken, plain bones.
2) If the chicken was smoked, that's a different thing. I've made stock with bones from smoked meats. It's a very different, very tangy flavor. You wouldn't want to mix it up with regular bones/regular stock, and you wouldn't want to use it for regular uses. (So label carefully when you store it!) But it's good in chili, or bean dishes, or jambalaya, or tortilla soup.
3) I was chatting with a Southern friend about making stock, and we were talking about whether to put chicken skin and/or fat in the stock (sometimes I do), and whether to skim fat off the stock. Purists will tell you you must skim. (Or separate the fat out after it's chilled.) But I liked my friend's response: "Skim the fat out? That's just mean!"

I remove the biggest chunks of chilled fat, but leave all the little floaty bits. Fat's where the flavor is.
And yes, skin and everything else goes in. I even scrape out the bottom of the plastic tray to get the goop. FLAVOR!

Anonymous wrote:I also use a rotisserie chicken. I get about 8 cups of stock from it. I throw in whatever we have -- onions, carrots, celery and a bay leaf. Put it in the slow cooker overnight and done.

I am hanging my head in shame that I never thought to use the slow cooker.

Can anyone think of any reason - at all - why this wouldn't work?

A few more things:

1) If there was BBQ sauce on the chicken (or curry, or any kind of flavored sauce), you're not going to want to use that. It'll change the flavor of the stock. Just plain chicken, plain bones.
2) If the chicken was smoked, that's a different thing. I've made stock with bones from smoked meats. It's a very different, very tangy flavor. You wouldn't want to mix it up with regular bones/regular stock, and you wouldn't want to use it for regular uses. (So label carefully when you store it!) But it's good in chili, or bean dishes, or jambalaya, or tortilla soup.
3) I was chatting with a Southern friend about making stock, and we were talking about whether to put chicken skin and/or fat in the stock (sometimes I do), and whether to skim fat off the stock. Purists will tell you you must skim. (Or separate the fat out after it's chilled.) But I liked my friend's response: "Skim the fat out? That's just mean!"

Yes, I forgot the bay leaf too! I use a couple.

23:52 here. No, I don't smash the bones. Just toss them in. And yes, my dirty little secret is that when I'm cleaning up dinner, if it's just the family, those bones from the plates go into the ziploc too. (I don't do it with guests, not because I fear guests' germs but because I don't want to creep out the guests.) When that stock's going to simmer for 8 or 10 hours, I don't worry about whether someone nibbled on the bone before it went in.

Usually, though, what happens is, the first meal with the chicken, we just lop off the drumsticks and a thigh, or a little breast meat, maybe a wing. (It's just DW, DS and me.) Those bones will end up in the bag, I admit. After that meal, in the kitchen, I remove the rest of the meat from the carcass, and store it in a container in the fridge for the coming leftover meals. So most of the meat ends up being served boneless on day 2 or 3, and most of the carcass and bones go straight from my cutting board into the ziploc, without crossing anyone's plate.