that instant stock is a world apart from freshly made

[medona]

I'm not trying to be snobby about cubes, they certainty have a place. But the depth of flavour is just not there compaired to something freshly made with natural ingredients right?

Ingredients:
Concentrated Chicken Stock (Water, Chicken) (36%), Glucose Syrup, Salt, Sugar, Flavourings, Yeast Extract, Chicken Fat (2%), Carrots, Palm Fat, Potassium Chloride, Leek, Gelling Agent (Xanthan Gum, Locust Bean Gum), Parsley, Garlic, Caramel Syrup, Maltodextrin, Carrot Juice Concentrate, Colour (Mixed Carotenes)

The only thing in that list I am cross about is the palm fat - and that's not because of the taste (palm oil is delicious) but because it is environmentally unsustainable. Poor old Knorr might be getting one of my Strongly-Worded Emails on that.

The rest is fine. Yum.

I just bought some chicken stock pots to day. They were £1.45 for 4. We don't eat much in the way of junk food in our house so I'm not anal about using the odd stock cube with additives in.

Kallo Orgainic stock cubes are brilliant.

I don't have a pressure cooker and also don't like the smell of boiled up chicken carcass in my kitchen, so I don't mind spending a whole 2.00 on 6 stock cubes. (Or whatever they cost)

Homemade chicken stock is the best BUT I stopped making it when I had lovingly added celery, onions, carrot, peppercorns etc and simmered it for hours until it was at it's peak. I was just imagining the homemade soups I was going to make with this wondrous concoction.

Then I got my big sieve to strain bones and veg off and did so. All down the sink. Yes, I was left with bare bones and mushed up veg. That was 2 hours of my life I was never going to get back. Decided then and there it was stockpots all the way!

Oh, god, Roussette, that's exactly the kind of thing I'd do! You must have been kicking yourself!

Oh Rousette! You must have felt so...........

Indeed! I came out with swear words I didn't know I knew and just stared down the plughole!

I suppose my brain couldn't get it's head round the fact I was not cooking the bones to eat but cooking the liquid!

Of course it's not the same. It's about the same as Chorleywood bread is in relation to sourdough.

There's no medals on offer for that observation, though.

Swiss Buillon powder is the mutt's nuts. I use the organic stuff and it works out really cheap. I'm a vegetarian so the thought of boiling bones up on the stove just gives me the boak.

If your stock is no better than stock cubes, then obviously you are doing it wrong. My chicken stock is delicious enough to have as soup just on its own. It's not rocket science, just bung your chicken carcass in a big pot with an onion, a carrot, a stick or two of celery, and whatever herbs suit your final dish. Boiling time is key, I go for at least four hours; house smells gorgeous and stock should be like jelly when cool.

I make my stock in the crockpot overnight. It's easy and delicious, and the house smells like Thanksgiving when we get up in the morning. :)

That's exactly what I do Tinkly it smells delicious but tastes like mildly vegetabley water.

YANBU I can't bear them really. I do use them sometimes but when I'm using vegetable stock I can really taste the difference. As DH is vegetarian I find it really affects the flavour if I use fake ones.

Notso is it maybe not concentrated enough? Too much water/ not enough cooking time? I normally crack a few of the chicken bones before I lob them in, and also add any leftover roasting tin fat or scrapings plus the drumstick and wing bones left on people's plates.

I make it, use stockpots and cubes, depending on what I am using it for.

I tried making stock once from cheap chicken - I should have known better but I was in my cash-strapped early 20's. It was vile, and as others say, flavourless. Even my reasonable skills, and two hours of trying couldn't pull any flavour from the poor thing.

Theres no point in trying to get a decent flavour from a chicken that's had a shit life. It has no flavour to give.

I'm not snobby about cubes, some are okay. Fresh stock is so flipping easy though, it's no hassle at all.

Ah right, well yes, I always buy free range, lovingly cosseted chicken, so maybe that's why my stock tastes good.

Haven't read this from the beginning, but although I am as lazy as they come as regards cooking and cannot afford organic, I do think people need to take stock, excuse the pun, of how many chemicals are going into their bodies every day. Really the less the food is processed, the better.

Eh, Coyoacan, I buy organic veg (mainly because that's what the convenient box scheme supplies), don't drink and don't smoke, so I think a stock cube isn't really pushing the boat out much in terms of poisoning myself.

I make veg stew a lot, and sometimes I ring the changes and make it beefy veg stew by putting a beef Stock Pot in it instead of a veg stock cube.

(My DS is very tolerant of my limited repertoire, thank goodness.)

I'm just impressed you know enough to compare both and realise the difference - I've never even used stock!!

Why would you not make your own? Homemade stock is absolutely vital in my kitchen to make everything from really simple soup (basically reduced stock) to everything else. Making it is brilliantly sayifying, incredibly easy, gratifyingly thrifty and infintely tastier than cubes. I often use Knorr stock pots as an ingredient in a stew or casserole but you can't beat real stock for gravies & soups.

As it's all made of leftovers - bones & veg scraps - there's no waste of anything. I keep all my veg ends, peelings & scraps in a bag in the freezer so that I'm not wasting nice fresh veg when I want stock. Making it takes precisely as long as it takes to tip the chicken carcass (or any other bones) and a bag of veg scraps into a stock pot / slowcooker, cover with water & switch it on.

There is no faff, no mess, no waste and the house smells heavenly all day. I can't imagine not making my own stock.

I am a great cook. I know how to make good stock.

Why would I not make my own?

Well, I have 7 people to feed! I use stock a lot. Where am I going to store it? my fridge freezer is small so I don't have the room to cook it in advance and store it. I am not going to cook stock every time I make a meal as I add it to a lot of things.

That is why I don't make it. That and stock pots taste nicer imo and it is not because I lack stock making skills.

What Banya does ^^ plus I reduce it right down and store in the little tubs the dips come in with Indian takeaways, takes up next to no space in the freezer. I love the way they set to a jelly from the rendering of the bones.

Banya because life is too short. I have no desire to have bags of peelings in my freezer and couldn't give a stuff about being thrifty.