Chicken Stock

Chicken Stock
A favorite sports question:
If we could pick any player, who would we pick to build a team around?
Let’s turn the question.
If we could pick any recipe, what would we pick to build a kitchen around?
Easy.
Chicken stock.

Chicken stock in the freezer is the wind beneath the wings of every accomplished cook.
There is no substitute.
There is no canned, frozen, or dried stock that approaches our own.

How do I\we use it?
Let me count the ways.

When a recipe calls for stock.
As a no-effort snack: heat, add a touch of salt, sip.
Or dress it up: add fresh herbs, sliced scallions, rice or pasta.
Or add two or three little necks clams and steam open. Unlikely sounding? Delicious.
When too sick to eat anything.
As a base to make the richest, most delicious chicken soup we ever had.
As a base to make splendid vegetables soups.

The Recipe
6lb fowl, fowl having more flavor than other types
8oz each: celery, carrots, and leeks

Put the fowl in a stockpot.
Fill the stockpot with water to 2inches above the fowl, but using at least 6 quarts of water.
Bring the pot to a boil and skim the foam.

To the foam-skimmed stockpot add:
celery, leeks, carrots and
A half-bunch of fresh parsley
Better to omit the parsley than to use a dried-herb substitute.

For health and culinary reasons, never add salt to stock.

Bring the pot to a medium simmer.
Cook for at least 3 hours, replenishing the water as needed to keep the ingredients submerged.

Strain the stock.
Freeze in 4cup containers for use in recipes or soups.

The flavor-exhausted meat, bones, and vegetables are not needed for this recipe.