Chicken Soup, Step 1

We occasionally get a rotisserie chicken from Costco.  These chickens are wonderful.  They are juicy, flavorful and nicely sized.  We get a meal, then strip the remaining meat off the bird and make soup.  This entry is about the first of two steps in the soup-making process.

The first step in making soup (and this is very important) is to make soup stock.  You do this by reserving the stripped meat (the meat will be used in the second step), and adding the carcass, skin, drippings and other associated strages to enough water to generously cover.  Then you add rough-cut celery, carrots and onions.  You don't need to peel the carrots or get fussy about the other veggies because you will be discarding them after the stock is made. 

DON'T add any spices at this point!

Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for maybe 45 minutes.  You don't want to do this too close to bedtime, because it takes forever (1-2 hours) in the cool-down phase before you can put it in the 'fridge. 

In this picture the stock is cooked and I am about to scoop all the material out of it.  Note the colander. Note also the bowl under the colander, rather than having the colander in the sink. You want to catch even the stock that drains from the detritus...the stock has become precious.

Here are the drained remains of the bones, cartilage, skin, veggies, etc. that have sacrificed their flavors for the sake of the stock. 

     Here is the result of the ingredients' efforts:  lovely, rich soup stock, still swirling.

In the wintertime I set the hot stockpot outside.  Snow, if available, helps the cool-down.  It is surprising how long this takes.  Maybe the fat in the stock acts as an insulator.

And now you have soup stock.  It tastes okay, but not great at this point.  Remember, there has been no spicing, not even salt.  The next step is Michele's.  In the next day or two she will turn this amber urn into an edible pot of gold.  My, my, my!