Putting it all Together

This is something I am going to try on a weekly basis: putting what I learned in school to work at home, see whether I can duplicate classroom successes. This week, I learned about stocks, so I decided to make a brown chicken stock, putting together the two techniques I learned. I started off by roasting the chicken carcasses and chopping my mirepoix, as well as making up my bouquet garni.

Once the chicken came out of the oven, I popped it in the stock pot, covered it with cold water and started simmering. While the chicken simmered, I browned the mirepoix in the roasting pan, adding tomato paste at the end. Then I removed the caramelised mirepoix, deglazed the pan and set all that good stuff aside until the water with the carcasses came to a simmer. All the while, I am skimming the chicken broth, getting rid of the gross bits. Once the chicken came to a simmer, I added the mirepoix and the bouquet garni and set it all to simmer for 3 hours.

When the 3 hours was up, I strained the stock through cheesecloth, cooled it down fast in the sink and transferred it to a large jar. It came up looking very nice. Perhaps a little more cloudy than I woudl have liked, but I intend to ask Chef Soren about that on Monday. All in all, a success and far more enjoyable than writing my essay for Dimensions!