I am going to Mumsnet the fuck out of this chicken!

Paxo stuffing up its bum first, lots of it, gives you chicken flavoured stuffing sandwiches. Brown sauce or ketchup and that's another meal, innit?

When making stock you want to use as little water as possible, while keeping the carcass under water. Bits sticking out will not be contributing to flavour.

So break up the carcass. Get the bones and vegetables as tightly packed in the saucepan as you can and add just enough water that everything is completely covered.

Cut up the vegetables with an eye to increasing their surface area. Add herbs - e. A bay leaf or two, peppercorns.

Cook it gently, although I'm not sure whether this affects the flavour. It does make the stock cloudy, but frankly I don't give a fuck if my stock is cloudy. But cook it for ages. And taste the bugger. If you think it needs a bit more flavour, cook it some more.

That's how I make stock.

I also like poaching an entire chicken, and boiling the bones afterwards. Have been known to get two batches of stock this way.

I am firmly smacking this thread on my 'watching' list.

Go get every morsel of this chicken, I want to see how far you get.

Yeah I only make stock if I am definitely going to make soup that week, otherwise, no.

I would not expect the stock to constitute the main of the soup though, it would just be instead of water and I would add loads of other ingredients and spices etc.

Only if I can be bothered though - favourite soup here is carrot and coriander and I find you don't even need stock for it to be tasty, so it's not worth a big deal.

RJ

I made chicken stock once. I boiled the fuck out that carcass. I added veg and bay leaves and herbs. I seived and stripped the carcass. I turned it into chicken and rice soup.

I tasted it.

I added three stock cubes because it tasted like rice in water. 😕

I usually cook a chicken in the slowcooker, 6 hours on low. You can get all the meat off it that way. Potatoes cooked out of liquid in the slowcooker can go wrong mash in a bag, never again and take ages. I wouldn't expect them to cook in 4 hours on high, so check with enough time to do a fix. I then make stock in the SC, strip the carcass, meat in one pile bones back in the SC, very little effort.

Nowt wrong with stock cubes if you actually want to taste the stock.

Otherwise, you'd probably need a shit ton of salt.

Tondelay,, I think it depends on your reasons for making stock in the first place. I do it whenever I have a carcass around, mainly because I find it's tastier than stock cubes ( which I am happy to use.)

It's delicious, I find it very simple (not a faff at all) and I try to use it in a special meal - a delicious soup, rather than just as a replacement for stock cubes.

I have zero-fucking time for food writers who turn their noses up at cubes. They're fine, but sometimes it's nice to have homemade stock as it feels a bit more special.

I feel a bit the same way Tonde.

I really only make stock if I am using it straight away for soup. (which isn't that often)

Carpenter when I slow cook a joint, I just rest it on onions that have been halved. But then that's because I hate the idea of tin foil cooking with my food (after seeing the state of my slow cooker when I steamed a foil wrapped Christmas pudding in it).

don't get into making your own stock..it's just a mahoosive guilt trip

I saved chicken carcasses in the freezer, then had a massive stock making session....up to my elbows in bastard chicken bones for a whole morning

put it all into those freezer bags and into the freezer

I NEVER EVER remember to lift any out and it just sits there judging me.

I might throw it all away.

I did a chicken in the slow cooker yesterday (as well as roasting one).

Slow cooker chicken will provide:
4 children's meals (8yo and 4yo, love chicken so would eat a pretty big portion)
One meal for 2 adults & 2 children of stir fry chicken.
Soup from bones

The roast chicken was smaller and was pretty much devoured at dinner last night, but I've taken enough scraps off it to add to the soup when it is done (to make it closer to a stew than a soup), and the bones have gone in the slow cooker with the bones of the other chicken.

Frankly, it's all a bit of a faff, and I prefer to just do one meal + sandwiches, but I'm trying to prep freezer meals for the next few weeks.

Btw we only have one of those meal options out of the chicken! So we only get 1 roast dinner and 1 leftover dinner from the meat, then bones for stock for a soup another time.

Lol worra
I too am a chicken stock virgin. I have never boiled a carcass.

We are family of 4 (4 year old and 1 year old who are good eaters) and we usually get roast dinner and then pie/risotto/spicy chicken pasta, and stock from bones out of a large chicken. Sometimes the pie etc will stretch to 2 more adults bulked out with more other stuff, but we never really find enough for sandwiches too somehow.

The pie I usually do with leeks and mushrooms, this makes it quite filling, risotto with courgettes and peas, pasta with peppers and sweetcorn and spicy tomato sauce.

In the summer would do stir fry with noodles and veg, or chicken noodle soup.

Worra

Don't forget to fashion some ornaments out of the chicken bones.

You don't want them going to waste.

yeah but the soup is made from the bones, so it is 2 meals really from the meat.

I won't be making stock as I'll be boiling the bones for the scraps and the stock will just be part of the soup.

Erm, won't that mean the meat will be massively overcooked? Since it's been cooked already (roasted?) it will only really need to be reheated very briefly, hence why that soup you linked to only takes 15 minutes. Am I missing something?

I'd strip the carcass completely, taking it completely apart as there will be meat on the inside as well, and start the soup off with the bones, adding the cooked meat only at the last minute, but reheating thoroughly - 5 minutes say. I strip chickens quite a bit (sounds a bit ) and have no problems stripping off every scrap of meat with my fingers - is easy.

With a 1.5kg chicken, I think sandwiches as well might be pushing it. My tip would be to portion off the meat straightaway, and bull out the pie with more veg. Leeks and mushrooms are usually nice in a chicken pie.