Is there anything better than a fat, juicy roasted chicken for Sunday lunch, accompanied by golden, crispy roast potatoes and mountains of seasonal veg?
Before roasting, I like to lovingly massage my chicken with a generous amount of butter and then pop a lemon up its *ahem* bottom for maximum flavour.
There tends to be plenty of meat leftover if I’m just cooking for two, so I make sure I’ve got some decent recipes up my sleeve to make full use of the remaining meat and carcass. Over the next few days, I’m going to post a couple of recipe ideas for you to try. For both recipes, you will need to make stock from your chicken carcass.
You will need
1 chicken carcass
1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
1 stick celery, washed and roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled
Freshly ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs fresh thyme
Makes 2 litres
1/2 hours cooking time
1. ) Put the chicken carcass into a large saucepan, add enough cold water
to cover it. Place on the heat and bring to the boil.
2.) Reduce the heat to a simmer, skim off any froth and fat that rises to the surface.
3.) Add all the vegetables, garlic and a good grinding of black pepper to the saucepan.
4.) Push all the ingredients under the surface of the stock and bring back to the boil. The idea is to boil the carcass for as long as you can to give your stock as much flavour as possible. I'd advise anywhere between 1 and two hours.
5.) Skim once more and set to simmer for half an hour, skimming the surface when necessary.
6.) Strain and cool. Will keep for up to three days in the fridge. Freezes well too.
Click here for a printable version of this recipe