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Basic Chicken Stock
Eliminating Foods Waste in the Covid-19 Era or ‘How I Lost My First Million in the Garbage Can’
Making chicken stock at home is extremely easy to do and very cost-effective. It is the natural (and free) by-product of roasting a chicken. Here’s the basic premise: Put the chicken bones and vegetables into a stockpot, cover with cold water then simmer away. It really is as simple as that.
When I originally wrote about chicken stock prior to Covid-19 changing our world, I described how many people were rediscovering the advantages of healthy home cooking. That more people were eating whole, unprocessed foods and shopping at their local farmers' market. Now that Covid-19 has changed the food landscape, we are heading towards a more depression-era strategy of being thrifty and frugal with our food supply.
Making Chicken Stock At Home
The longer Covid-19 affects our lives. the more I draw on my early experiences as a Chef in some great restaurants to help those struggling at home. The transition from eating out several meals a week to home cooking can surely benefit from some sage chef advice.
“I lost my first million in the garbage can.” — Michel LeBorgne, former Chef/Instructor, NECI
Many years ago, ok maybe several decades ago, I graduated from the prestigious New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vermont. At the time, the school was run by Michel LeBorgne, a hard-nosed French Chef from Northern France. Like every great Chef before him (and probably every one since) Michel had his aphorisms that we lived our lives by. They were repeatedly drummed into our thick skulls as we chopped endless vegetables, sauteed oceans of fresh fish, and struggled to make perfectly clear stocks.
Most of his sayings were modified from the classic themes of how older generations had it much harder than us young punks. ‘We were so poor as apprentices, we only had one pair of shoes between the two of us” or “I used to walk to the restaurant uphill both ways.” The one that stuck and became part of my own repertoire of aphorisms was “I lost my first million in the garbage can”. That line inspired me throughout my career and helped maintain very low food costs and run a tight…
