Chicken bones - not just for voodoo

It's a simple thing really. Making stock. But if you reduce the stock right down to a syrupy consistency it becomes a flavour bomb ready to transform your dish.  


Really, really concentrated chicken stock is my secret ingredient for roast chicken (a good quality air chilled chicken is actually pretty important as well so maybe that's the secret ingredient - devil is in the details I guess).

I save the carcasses from my roast chickens, the backbones I cut out, unused necks. Anything really as long as it never saw a grill. I stick them in a grocery store bag and chuck them in the freezer. When I figure I have a pot full I toss them into a pot along with one halved unpeeled onion and fill it up with water. I turn on the heat and I wait.

And I wait.

Gravity defying is what you want

And I wait. 

And I wait.

I wait until I've simmered that pot of stock down from a full 5 litre pot to around a cup or two. It goes from what you'd call stock to this syrupy full of mouthfeel magic elixir. I'm not overstating it. Try it, you'll see. You want it to be solid like jello when it comes out of the fridge.

I strain it and put about 1/2 cup into a medium ziploc freezer bag, squeeze the air out and freeze. I get 2 or 3 per batch. I put a cookie sheet into the freezer as flat as I can get it (which isn't very flat, my freezer is a mess) and then put the ziploc bags onto the cookie sheet. When I need some extra wow I just break off a piece and melt it into the sauce.

It's a better form of voodoo...