The Homestead Photography Contest Week 15 - Wholesome Homestead Recipes

The most wholesome thing I make on the homestead is bone stocks. Just about all the ingredients come from the farm. I do chicken stock in September and beef stock in November.

For chicken stock I average 32 qts a year, except last year when I made 70 qts. For beef stock I made 99 qts in 2016 but it has to last me 2 years as we only get a steer every other year.

The Recipe:

Chicken Stock

2 lbs. chicken carcass and skin, and feet if desired
½ head of garlic broken up but unpeeled
5 celery roughly chopped
2 onions roughly chopped
2 lg. carrots roughly chopped
3 bay leaves
3 fresh rosemary
5 fresh parsley
5 fresh thyme
5 whole black peppercorns
3 qts. cold water
Apple cider vinegar

Notes:

We butcher all 90 birds at the same time. Once the meat is processed, I start making stock. It can take up to a week to process all of it. I have 1 giant stockpot, 2 Xlg stockpots and several Farberware stockpots, and a 6 burner stove.

I figure out how many carcasses (by weight) I can fit into each pot and then figure out the proportion of vegetables and herbs and vinegar fits in each pot. I prep all the vegs the day before and set them in huge stainless steel bowls in water overnight. I also measure out all the herbs into small bowls.

Back to the recipe…

In a large deep thick bottomed pan place the chicken carcass and skin garlic vegetables all the herbs and the peppercorns. Add the cold water and bring to the boil then turn the heat down to a simmer. Skim off scum as it appears. Continue to simmer for up to 12 hours, skimming as necessary.

Notes:

The stockpots don’t have a thick bottom so I use heat diffusers under them. The pots are covered, but with the lids slightly tilted. Every hour I check them and add water as needed, to keep the level within 1” of the top. Because they are so full, I can’t skim and have never found the need to.

Back to the recipe…

Pass the stock through a fine sieve.

Allow to cool for about half an hour then refrigerate. Once the stock is cold it should look amber in color. Skim off fat.

At this point I normally divide the stock into quart plastic containers and freeze it. It keeps well in the fridge for about 4 days and in the freezer for a year at 0F.

Notes:

Using a large sieve, we pour the stock into my giant canning kettle and my large ones. The bones and vegetables are put into 5 gallon buckets. I will go through this and remove ALL the bones and package up the remains to feed to the pigs. I long ago discovered that vegs and meat cooked for 12 hours has pretty much lost all flavor to the stock, as it should.

Prior to starting the stock, I have frozen many metal bowls of ice to use in cooling the stock. I also turn the temperature way down in our extra fridges.

I am usually making chicken stock the first week of September as Poultry Freezer Camp is always Labor Day weekend. So it is not cold enough at night to cool the stock. I float the frozen bowls in the stock and place the kettles in the super cold fridges.

By morning the stock is usually cool enough to dip off much of the fat. I leave some to put in each freezer container. You can see there’s about ½” of fat on top of the stock.

I label and date each box with freezer tape. As I regularly inventory the freezers, it’s good to know what’s oldest and needs used first.