Crockpot Chicken Stock, Avgolemono Soup, Braised Sauerkraut

If you have a nice large crockpot, you’ve got a gadget that calls out to make you some wonderful chicken stock, a glorious base for home-made chicken soup and delicious stuff to cook with in general. Making stock in your slow cooker is easy as…well, pie.

You need:

• A chicken carcass or collection of bones from baked, roasted, fried, or barbecued chicken; the more the better
• An onion
• One or more garlic cloves
• A stick of celery
• A carrot or two
• Water
• White wine or sherry (optional)
• Fresh or dried herbs to taste: thyme, chervil, parsley, fines herbes, tarragon, basil, rosemary…whatever you have in the pantry or in the garden

Trim the root end off the onion and then cut the onion into chunks, skin and all. No need to peel off the papery skin. Coarsely chop the garlic, not bothering to peel the cloves. Wash the carrot—don’t bother to peel that, either—and cut it and the celery into coarse chunks.

Place the chicken bones into the crockpot. If using a carcass, you may want to break it apart into large pieces. Add all the vegetables and herbs. Add enough water to cover everything. If desired, add a generous dollop of white wine or sherry with the water.

Turn the crockpot to low, cover, and go away. Allow the whole mess to simmer all day long, or, if you prefer, all night.

After many hours have passed, turn off and unplug the crockpot. Set it on the counter next to the sink. Place a large bowl in the sink and set a strainer over the top of it. Ladle the liquid and cooked ingredients into the strainer, using the back of the ladle to press the liquid out of the cooked stuff and through the strainer as thoroughly as is practical. Discard the exhausted cooked solids.

Allow the bowl of stock to cool uncovered until it’s reasonable to put the bowl into the refrigerator. Once you can get it into the fridge without disrupting the temperature inside, cover the bowl and allow the stock to chill for six or eight hours or overnight. This will cause the fat, which floats to the surface, to congeal.

When the stock is thoroughly chilled, remove from the fridge and simply peel or ladle the congealed fat off the surface. Discard it.

You now have a bowl of very tasty low-sodium, low-fat chicken stock, which can be used on its own as unadorned chicken soup or used in recipes asking for canned chicken broth.

I happen to be very partial to…

Avgolemono Soup

This easy and tasty dish is Greece’s answer to Jewish penicillin. Into a pan or microwave-safe bowl, ladle as much home-made chicken stock as needed for the desired number of servings. Heat it to serving temperature. Add some cooked rice or pasta, and then squeeze the juice of half a lemon into the broth. Stir and serve hot. Season to taste with salt and pepper. If desired, sprinkle a little chopped parsley and Parmesan into the soup.

And just the other day I had a great deal of success with this:

Braised Sauerkraut

In a strainer, drain and rinse a bottle, can, or bag of sauerkraut. Place this in a pot large enough to hold it with some room to spare.

Cut a seeded apple into bite-sized chunks. Toss these into the sauerkraut. Flavor with about a teaspoon of fennel seeds and a quarter- to half-teaspoon of dried thyme leaves. Add enough chicken broth to just cover the kraut.

Bring the ingredients to a simmer and then hold at the simmer over low heat for forty-five minutes or an hour. The apple should be cooked soft and the kraut should be mellow in flavor.

Serve hot or cold with sausages, pork, chicken, duck, or whatever suits your fancy.

When I’m not planning to use the broth immediately, I like to freeze it in one- or two-cup containers. Keep it handy to use in any recipe that calls for chicken broth. Also, the next time you have another chicken carcass, defrost and add some of the old broth to the liquid for the new crockpot stock, creating an even richer and more delicious product.

Image: Rooster Portrait. Muhammed Mahdi Karim. GNU Free Documentation License