Three Chickens

$.99 a pound sounded pretty good, so I added a third chicken to my basket. I don't really know what a good price is these days. But I was actually shopping for boneless chicken breasts because my husband made noises about inventing a marinade and grilling some on our new countertop electric grill. Since whole chickens have breasts it seemed the better buy.

When I visited Petaluma last month, I had a conversation with our gourmand son about the way he makes chicken stock that will jell up as it chills in the refrigerator, so much better than the thin canned or boxed stuff. What is missing there is the collagen. He gets a little rhapsodic when he talks about it. I texted him some questions, knowing it was a zoo at work but he'd get back to me when he could. In the meantime I started the carving up process.

Six nice plump boneless half-breasts in one plastic bag. The rest of the three carcasses in a great big bag, along with chopped up carrots, onions, celery and some garlic cloves. Lucky there was room in the fridge to hold them until morning, because I didn't want to be up all night.

In the meantime I simmered the giblets from all three chickens until they were tender and put them in the mini-processor along with salt and pepper and mustard. We smooshed that on some nice whole wheat crackers to go with our 5 o'clock wine.

Bubbling merrily away

When Dennis called later he reminded me that the thigh meat was also good to separate out for another recipe -- he has a teriyaki he likes to do. So this morning I took the thighs out of the parts bag, skinned them, and put them aside as well. 

Browning three chicken carcasses on the stove top, along with the vegetables, seems way too labor intensive. I knew that Mark Bittman browns his stock ingredients in the oven, so I looked up his instructions for time and temperature. I just put everything in my big roaster in a 500 degree oven and gave it about 45 minutes. Starting to smell good!

After that cooled a bit I retrieved some of the other bits of meat, from the wings and legs, and the tender morsels that can be scooped out of the back. I managed to get almost 4 cups of cooked meat that way. The remaining bones and skin went into my extra-large stock pot with enough water to cover. And, by roasting, I had already rendered out lots of chicken fat, which I was able to discard before adding the delicious juices that had gathered in the bottom of the roaster. Less skimming later.

Then we went out to late breakfast, leaving the pot simmering. After it cools I can strain and store it. Time for Mike to work on marinating those chicken breasts! Maybe I can get him to clean up after me, too, because I made a mess.