November 30th, 2009 
Tommy Grobmyer Don’t Throw Out That Bird Carcass!
Monday is coming up, and hopefully you have a pretty picked turkey carcass in your friend, but I certainly hope that you didn’t throw it out because you have a big pot of stock just waiting to be made.
This year I make Cornish Game Hens for a Thanksgiving Party I attended, but I asked my host if I could have the turkey carcass to make stock with. I was able to pick about a half cup of meat off of it still, which I did and refrigerated, and then I threw the entire thing–what I couldn’t pick off, skin and bone–into a 12-quart pot along with the game hen bones, covered with water, and started boiling it down. I let it boil for two solid hours, about 20 minutes at a full boil and then the rest of the time at a low rolling boil, and then strained. By that time it was already delicious, but I really like my stock to be flavorful.
I had about 6.5 or 7 quarts of base stock. Next, I added:
four large cloves of garlic,
half and a yellow onion,
a cup and a half of carrots diced small,
three stalks of celery sliced thin (did you use all your celery on that stuffing?)
one medium potato diced very small since I basically wanted it to dissolve to naturally thicken the stock a bit,
some fresh parsley (optional)
a few turns of the pepper mill (not too much),
about 1/4 a teaspoon each of:
dried rosemary,
sage,
marjoram,
thyme,
and just a dash of nutmeg.
and I also added about 1 teaspoon of salt.
Remember that stock is a base for other recipes, so you don’t want to go all out and over spice it. More pepper and salt can be added, for example, if your particular recipe needs it. For now, I am just concerned with creating a very tasty stock that won’t overwhelm whatever I happen to use it in.
After cooking all the other ingredients at a low boil for about one hour I let it cool and then began straining it. First, I emptied out about half of that is just stock with no veggies in it. I put it in ice trays to freeze, and from there transferred it into freezer bags. The reason for putting it into ice cube trays is so you don’t have a huge mass of stock you have to chisel at or constantly be defrosting and refreezing. In cubes, if you need a cup of stock you can just grab about six or seven ice cubes. You do need a lot of ice trays–more than I had–so I also put some in freezer bags, putting 2 cups into each bag.
I set aside about 1.5 quart of the rest for the recipe I’m going to give making sure I had veggies in it. The rest of the stock, with the veggies, I froze in 2 cup portions in freezer bags.
With the set aside stock, I made a simple and delicious “chicken noodle soup.”
I simple cooked about 12 ounces of whole wheat egg noodles in my stock, adding about 1-2 cups of water.
I also added about 1 teaspoon or less of salt,
and I added an additional 1/4 teaspoon of thyme,
and the 1/2 cup of meat I’d been able to pick off the leftovers.
That made four generous servings (or six modest ones) of the most delicious “chicken noodle soup” you could hope for. It would have also been good with a few turns of the pepper mill while cooking. And, with the leftover stock, I can make the same meal again
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