Making stock out of chicken bones

[HanSB]

...leftover from people's plates is disgusting?

I had a lovely roast chicken dinner at a friend's house and was helping her clear the table. She scrapped all the leftover bones covered in bits of gravy from everyone's plates into a saucepan to make a stock.

I'm all for using the stripped leftover carcass to make a stock but it had never crossed my mind that you would use the half eaten around left over bits of bones from plates.

Is this actually the norm??

I wouldn't do it. And even if I did I wouldn't admit it to a dinner guest.

From the carcass not on people's plates is fine but not off plates - yuck

I absolutely do this. I actually would find it slightly wasteful not to, if I am saving the bones from the carcass for stock why wouldn’t I also save the ones from people’s plates? I doubt they’ve had them in their mouths, guests tend to eat with knife and fork (and if they don’t they are hardly in a position to criticise what I do with the bones…)

I don’t serve my precious homemade stock to guests anyway, it’s saved for a few specific meals including, as a PP said, comfort dishes for when we are ill. Hugely nutritious. So anyone horrified can rest assured they won’t be getting any. Happily my DH and DC don’t see the problem.

Making your own stock by boiling bones for hours then reducing the broth is something professional chefs talk like to talk about, but they have brigades of commis to do it for them. In the real world, for home cooks, life is too short, energy is too expensive & decent quality cubes are available.

I'd slice meat off the bone to serve if I wanted to make the stock

Making stock is super easy and doesn't need hours of boiling. I boil mine for about 30mins, on a low heat so simmering once it's reached a boil. Any bugs are 100% killed and I always use all the bones - plates or not. It's never occurred to me not to and I can't see what could possibly, logically, be the problem. Even if some weirdo had literally been chewing the bone (no human I know does that - just removes the meat) I still don't see how it could be a problem given it will be boiled.
Fwiw I rarely have dinner visitors who aren't family, and my friends who do come are as gung ho in their germ/pointless ick attitude as I am. We are all very healthy.

Huge stock person, but I strip before serving.
Sorry, but that made me laugh

Hygenically it's totally fine, it's all being reboiled, and it's a way to reduce food waste which is something everyone should be making more of an effort about.

I misread this as children's bones.

Boiled saliva ! delicious 🤢 the thought of that is really gross I probably wouldn't eat there again.

A pressure cooker is your friend. Fantastic stock from 30 mins cooking.

No problem with chewed bones, the high temperature sterilises them.

Stock cubes are nothing whatsoever to do with stock, they're essentially flavoured salt. Decent-quality demiglace, which would be the actual workaround, is incredibly expensive.

I’m slightly confused by this. Do most people pick up their chicken bones and eat the meat off from a hot roasted chicken? I’d only do this with cold drumsticks at, say, a picnic. Hot roast chicken the bones stay on the plate and we cut the meat off so I’d have no issue putting those in the stock pot. And home made stock is much nicer for soup.

Am I the only person on mumsnet who has never made stock from chicken bones?? We have very little food waste as a family, but I’ve never managed that one. Re the OP, I kinda agree with the ick factor about reusing leftovers from plates..

A question please for those who make home made stock.

I make stock from the carcass of a whole chicken that I cooked in my instant pot. Sometimes I eat chicken pieces that has had some sort of marinade on the outside. If I then used those bones to add to stock, would the marinade have infused into the bones then cause the stock to be tainted?
it would be handy to pop them in a freezer bag to add to the stock pot later but don’t want to risk ruining a precious pot of stock.

Really surprised people think this is disgusting. We do this a fair amount, saying we as DH is the cook & usually makes the stock. Not every time as often have a lot of stock or no room in freezer for more bones (left over bones/carcass from one chicken isn't enough to make a good amount of flavourful stock so we tend to save bones over a few meals. Tbh don't often have guests or do it after guests, not that I'd be embarrassed to admit it - more that I don't want to be bagging up bones for freezer / getting stock on when have visitors. As others have said it gets cooled at a decent temp. We use pressure cooker usually so it doesn't take hours. And home made stock cannot be compared to stock cubes.

I should think a bit of marinade might add flavour! Obviously you might not want, say, chilli in every dish you might make from the stock but it would be useable.

Stock cubes completely ignore the sticky protein goodness that comes out from boiling the bones, and that make soups and risotto so lovely. If you use a pressure cooker, it doesn't take long. Any marinades already on the chicken will add to the stock flavour?

@Clarinet1 thank you, I will give it a try.

when I throw up I use it as mulch in the garden
;-)

Something I've started doing recently is to break down the bones, using a potato masher, as they cook. It makes the flavour even better

I mean, I eat meat, but you're eating a dead animal; so I'm not sure why you're so grossed out by a trace amount of saliva (probably from your own family) that's going to be boiled for hours?

I honestly had to check the date on this thread because I thought it was the same one!

Caused as much divide as this one lol

I always do this. It would never occur to me not to. Also very surprised that some people think it's weird not go strip meat off a chicken before serving it - why would you?? Maybe the same people who would only ever serve filleted fish.

Team Bones here. I use every bit of the leftover chicken, including plate scrapings. Why not - it's only been touched by a knife and fork.