If you make your own stock, you have every right to roll your eyes and resort to obscenity . . .

Filigree said:

I followed a new recipe for caramelizing onions in a pressure cooker, and then turning some of them into French Onion soup. Delicious.

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If I have the energy I always caramelize the onions even for split pea soup

JoeEkaitis said:

.... A fryer would probably disintegrate.

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Nope... I've used a fryer many a time for stock - works great.

I sometimes steam a chicken in the slow cooker, with just a splash of water in the bottom, and you get a surprising amount of stock underneath it when it's done. Really good stock. Sets like a jelly. You also get a lot of rendered fat, especially from a free range chicken. Same happens with ducks and any large joint of meat.

When we're finished eating a chicken, however it was cooked, I take the leftover meat off the bone, then I throw the carcass in the slow cooker and cover with cold water and let it go on High for 3 or 4 hours. (My slow cooker is a Crock Pot brand, and so cooks hot and will bring cold water to a simmer in an hour; if you have a more traditional style slow cooker you may have to let it run overnight to get a good stock). Then I strain it, skim the fat and boil it down so it takes up less space in the freezer.

If there's enough fat, I'll mix it up with twice its weight in flour and a splash of water to make pastry, squash it into a box and freeze it for future pies.

These are my two methods for lazy-person's stock. I never skim the scum or clarify or do any of these things, because I am lazy.

I don't really know what "bone broth" is meant to mean.

What's up with everyone in this thread cooking their onions with the skin on? Just curious - never encountered this before.

Onion skin adds color, and saves the bother of peeling it.

Ah, OK. I assumed it must be inedible even if cooked.

It is pretty inedible (tough & fibrous). You remove it from the stock with the rest of the solids. The skin keeps it an intact unit so you don't have bits of loose onion floating around. At that point if you really want to eat the onion you can just squeeze the soft parts out of the skin, just as you squeeze a boiled or roasted garlic.

I have a friend who likes to make "dirty chicken soup" by putting the soup vegetables (onion, carrot, etc.) through a food mill after the stock has cooked & stirring the puree back in to thicken it. One of the virtues of a food mill is that it traps the skin & any other tough bits.

[h=1]If you make your own stock, you have every right to roll your eyes and resort to obscenity[/h]

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I have been rolling my eyes and resorting to obscenities for the last 20 years.

Why wouldn't one roll one's eyes and resort to obscenities? Sometimes the world is just too much.

But what do you do if you have too much stock and it's using up a good portion of freezer space? Recipes that use a ton of it that aren't soup? Soup seems strange to me in the spring. Although I could go for a corn chowder if it was right.

I try to break down stock by freezing it into ice cubes for easier usage.

darkprincealain said:

Why wouldn't one roll one's eyes and resort to obscenities? Sometimes the world is just too much.

But what do you do if you have too much stock and it's using up a good portion of freezer space? Recipes that use a ton of it that aren't soup? Soup seems strange to me in the spring. Although I could go for a corn chowder if it was right.

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I have a pressure canner and a cabinet full of quart sized jars of various things, stock, chili meat, tomato sauce. It's very nice when I'm not up to much to just open a jar of my own chili meat soiced the way that I like it and maybe add a can of something else for variety

When you can your own meat there will also be a layer of nice rendered lard at the top. I saute veggies in that to add to the meat or reserve it to fry potatoes. It really is far better than other stuff to fry in.