Stock

I always hang on to bones to make stock. The carcass of a chicken or the bones from a leg of lamb etc along with peelings and leftover stalks from the vegetable preparation (all cleaned of mud before peeling) are popped into the freezer for future use. I keep the types of meat bones separate so for example a bag for chicken, bag for duck, one for rabbit, one for lamb etc.
Then when I know I will have the oven on I defrost them ready.

Ingredients £0.22
Left over Bones
Vegetable peelings and stalks (cleaned)
1 onion quartered with skin on(cleaned)
Salt
Thyme (optional)

N.B. This is not a recipe for clear stock.

1. I add a quartered unpeeled onion and put this along with the vegetable peelings in a roasting tin and put the bones on top. Roast in the oven for half an hour either while something else is cooking or if there is a lot, on its own. Roasting the bones and vegetables I find adds to the flavour and colour.

2. After the roasting put the contents of the roasting tin in a large pan and deglaze the roasting tin with a small amount of water then add this to the stock pan. Cover with water, add salt and pepper and a small amount of thyme if using (but don’t over do the herbs).


3. Bring to the boil and simmer for around 30 minutes for a bird carcass but lamb and beef bones take around an hour to extract all the goodness from the bone marrow.

4. Strain off into a bowl and allow to cool remove any meat from the bones and put aside for soups, pies, pasties toasties etc. Throw away the bones along with any vegetable peelings and herbs there is no goodness left in them now.

5. Once the stock is cooled any fat will rise to the top and can be skimmed off. If you want to concentrate the flavour return to the pan and reduce down. Cool completely and store in suitable containers in the fridge of freezer for future use. Stock will last for around 2 days safely stored in the fridge.