We are Costco members and certainly get our money’s worth. The money we save on coffee and half and half more than covers the cost of Executive Membership. Everything else is lots and lots of icing on the cake. The best deal at Costco is rotisserie chicken - a plump 3 pound bird for 5 bucks. One of these bronze beauties usually contributes to 2 or 3 meals for our family. We often just pick the whole chicken for tacos. Leftovers become chicken salad or get frozen to pull out some night for more chicken tacos. I could write pages about all the ways we transform Costco chickens, and maybe I will, but this post is about the value we extract after you’ve eaten the chicken.
With the carcass and an instant pot we create delicious free chicken stock to use when cooking soup or beans - also in the instant pot. Stock from a box costs almost as much as a rotisserie chicken. And, you’d think with all those ingredients it would taste better. Here's how to eat your chicken and have stock too.
Pick the chicken clean. I hate to waste but I am not interested in picking meat from a pot of hot stock, bones, and cooked-to-shit veggies. So, I scavenge all the meat I want before cooking. Put all the bones, skin, and that jelly from the bottom of the tray into the pot. If you have some limp carrots or celery, a sprouted onion or a couple cloves of garlic through those in too. I always add a bay leaf because I have a Costco-sized container of them I would never finish otherwise.
Fill the pot with water. Pressure cook on high for about 40 minutes. This seems to be enough time to convert all the collagen in connective tissue to gelatin which is good for you and gives soups, sauces, and other dishes rich flavor and consistency.
Many people buy collagen pills to help with joint pain and flexibility but people didn’t used to take collagen pills. So either 1) collagen pills are just the latest way to separate people from their money; 2) in the old days people didn’t complain about joint pain or didn't live long enough to experience it; or 3) when people cooked whole animals, bones, and cheap meats full of connective tissue they got daily doses of collagen in their diet for free. Who knows?
After cooking use a sieve to strain the stock into jars. Let it cool then stick it in the freezer. Leave an inch or two of head space for the stock to expand as it freezes. Whenever you make soup, beans, risotto or anything else that requires stock just pull a jar ahead of time to thaw or put the jar in a bowl of cool water to thaw quickly if, like us, you do not plan ahead. We usually get about 3 quarts of stock per carcass which, at market rate, is worth at least $9. This is a win for my cheapness but just as important our stock is more delicious and nutritious and reduces waste.
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