It’s probably a bad time to invest money in stocks. But it’s always a good time to invest time into making stocks – chicken stock, veal stock, vegetable stock, etc. Yes, you’ll be stuck in the house for up to 10 hours, but there is simply no substitute for the flavor you get from a beautiful stock.

Oh, big ol' pot of stock!

I had wanted to make stock for a while and kept putting it off because… yes, it takes time. Also, you need to get all those bones somewhere. Living in NYC, that’s pretty easy I found. Whole Foods was selling a bunch of chicken backs, necks, and other odd parts for a couple bucks a pound. They were right there in the poultry cooler with the breasts and thighs, but they’re not always available, and not all Whole Foods sell them. Also try Asian and Latino supermarkets. They often have many meat products that mainstream supermarkets don’t carry.

So, I roasted my 10 pounds or so of chicken parts for about ½ hour to get them nice and browned (I was making a dark stock. If you want a light chicken stock, don’t roast the bones.) Then into my enormous 10-gallon stockpot they went, along with a browned mirepoix (coarsely-diced onions, carrots, and celery), fresh thyme and parsley stems, several whole black peppercorns and whole garlic cloves, and water to cover.

Chicken backs, necks, legs ready for roasting

Chicken legs cut into sections, from the H Mart (Korean grocery). Good mix of bones and meat.

Mirepoix ready for a quick browning

Sachet - parsley, thyme, bay leaves, garlic, peppercorns

I simmered the stock overnight, about 12 hours total, and slept in the living room just in case.

Next morning: removed the solids, strained through a sieve lined with cheesecloth, strained again, then poured into smaller pot and placed in sink with ice bath. I used a big bag of ice from the store to the ice bath, as I ended up with a few gallons of stock, and it must be cooled from around 180F down to 40F.

Some stock went straight to storage. The rest, I continued to simmer rapidly after straining to reduce to a nice thick consistency with a concentrated flavor. I put some of this thicker stock into ice cube trays, for easy measurement and use later. One cube = one ounce, one tray = two cups.

Yikes, too heavy to even lift!

It takes a long time from start to finish, but you could hardly call this hard work. Put on some music, watch a movie, write a novel or whatever, and enjoy the amazing aroma and the warmth that spreads through your house (I made the stock on a cold morning and it heated my basement apartment nicely.)

So far I’ve received the following return on this investment of time: an amazing chicken soup, and a chicken in butternut squash stew, both of which were packed with flavor from browned chicken, complex seasonings mixes, and this intensely-flavored liquid. Pretty good ROI yeah?

I wasn't even exaggerating. The thing's gigantic.