Stock Bombs

Next time you open a carton of commercially made chicken stock, have a little sip before you contaminate your cooking. It's rather ordinary. If you can taste more than salt, onion powder and a faint hint of herbs, you have a better palate than I.

The fancy stuff in the floppy pouches is definitely better but it costs more per millilitre than entry-level chardonnay. Fuck that I say. Especially when you can turn a pile of chicken scraps into these deeply chickeny, super-concentrated Stock Bombs.

You're going to reduce two litres of liquid down to about 500ml, so the concentrate you'll be left with will be four times richer than standard stock. I freeze mine in 50ml pucks using a muffin tray, but you can use an ice cube tray if that's easier.

You need around 1kg of chicken scraps to make 500ml of the concentrated stock. Over the years, I've used leftover carcasses, bones, wing tips and chicken necks. Necks make the most flavoursome stock and they're dirt cheap because they look like skinned dicks. When you've made your stock you can sprinkle the cooked necks with a little salt and gnaw off the meat - if you can get over the dick thing.

If I'm making a standard stock for European/Mediterranean cooking, I'll add carrot, celery, onion, garlic and a few herbs, but I prefer to keep these Stock Bombs pure. Just chicken, water and time. The advantage of keeping it neutral is that you can use the Bombs in every conceivable cuisine, without adding other flavours that have no business being there. Rosemary in a laksa, for example.

Leave the salt out too, so when you drop your bombs you can add intensity without turning everything into brine.

Ingredients

1kg Chicken scraps (bones, carcasses, wing tips, necks or a combination)

2l cold water

Method

Rinse the chicken scraps under cold water and place them in a pot with 2 litres of cold water. Bring it to a very gentle simmer then go do something else for 2 or 3 hours.

When the liquid has reduced to about a quarter (from 2l to 500ml), turn off the heat and let it cool.

Strain the stock through a fine sieve, then pour it into a muffin or ice cube tray.

Once frozen, you can pop the little pucks into a ziplock bag. They're good for 3 months in the freezer, but they're so darn versatile you'll use them up in weeks.

Drop one or two into your sauce, soup, curry or gravy and celebrate your cheffy resourcefulness with bottle of that bottom-shelf chardonnay.