Photo: Ingredients for fresh chicken stock

I’d written my post for tonight. Budget, delicious chicken risotto for 62p per portion when I realised that the main ingredient – the chicken stock hadn’t been blogged.

A horse without the cart is no good for anyone who is travelling in foodie country. So here’s the cart. This stock works with cooked chicken bones or a fresh carcass. The latter makes better stock, I think. If you remember to remove the chicken when it is cooked (1-1.5 hours depending on size) you will have perfectly poached chicken to add to a multitude of other dishes such as stir fries, risotto, soup, pies, sandwiches to name but a few.

You don’t need to cook chicken from scratch for every dish especially if you have really good stock. Just use the stock (even to braise vegetables in a stir fry) and add the chicken right at the end and allow 2-3 minutes for it to warm through.

The main secret of making stock in the slow cooker (or Aga) is to add cold water. This allows the flavours to develop as the stock heats up. It may take an hour or so for the stock to reach simmering point on auto in a slow cooker but it’s worth the wait. I’ve tried adding hot stock and cold stock and the latter wins hands down every time.

The other key trick was suggested by Joanna of Joanna’s Food. Leave the skin on the onion. This gives colour and added flavour to the stock. Joanna, I thnk you from the bottom of my heart every time that I taste my stock.

The third tip is to chop your vegetables fine so that the maximum flavour is released. I’ve tried tossing in whole vegetables and the chopping is worth it every time.

The fourth tip is taken from the way most decent chefs make stock. Add a good quality chicken stock cube. This sounds crazy as you have a chicken already submerged in the pot but it works.

Fresh herbs (thyme is great with chicken and doesn’t tend to overpower), peppercorns, garlic and a bay leaf all add to the magic of good stock. Once your chicken is cooked remove it and allow the stock to simmer on for a good two or three hours. Chill the stock and skim off the fat. Then you are ready to go!

Cook your rice in the stock, use it as a base for soup, try it instead of milk in a béchamel type of sauce, simmer vegetables in it and generally luxuriate in its flavour. It’s packed with vitamins and minerals.

How to make the best chicken stock in your slow cooker

Ingredients:

• Half a free range chicken
• 3 stalks of celery sliced fine
• 1 medium onion, skin on and quartered
• 3 medium carrots sliced fine
• 1 medium courgette sliced fine
• 10 black peppercorns
• 1 fresh bay leaf
• 10 sprigs of thyme (a sprig is a side stalk in this kitchen)
• 1 fat clove of garlic, chopped fine
• 1 good quality chicken stock cube (such as Gallo organic)
• Half tsp of dried Italian herbs
• Quarter tsp of salt
• Cold water to cover

Method:

1. Put all the ingredients into the slow cooker. Set your slow cooker to auto or high until the water starts to simmer.
2. Turn to low for an hour or so until the chicken is cooked (juices run clear from the thickest part of the thigh). When the chicken is cooked, remove it and cover with foil. When it is cool put it in the fridge – the foil will stop it drying out.
3. Meanwhile allow the stock to bubble away on low for at least another two hours. Chill and remove the fat.

If you are using pre cooked bones they can stay in the stock until the end.

Bean face

I found some half price braising steak and parsnips on offer at the weekend. Both were tossed into my trolley along with a chunky bag of carrots and a can of Guinness. It’s the perfect weather for a beef in Guinness stew.

As I was chopping the vegetables Danny piped up.
“Do you know what would be really great with this dish. Some butter beans and the flageolets that were in the Pheasant and Venison Casserole à La Beastley. They were so tasty and packed with flavour.”
A year ago Danny would never have dreamt that beans could be good in anything.

I was delighted. The beans would pad out the protein element and possibly add a great new twist to beef in beer. There was just one problem.

I hadn’t soaked any beans.

Then I remembered that Delia Online has a method for fast track soaking. You put the beans in a large saucepan of cold water, bring it to the boil and simmer rapidly for ten minutes. Then remove from the heat and soak for a few hours.

We did that for Butter Beans and flageolets. After two hours tossed them into the slow cooker with the meat and vegetables. A few hours later everything was cooked apart from the beans.

I separated the beans from the stew this evening and simmered them for another four hours. Eventually hunger forced us to eat the stew without the beans.  They have now simmered for eight hours in and out of the stew and are just beginning to lose their bite.

The beans are well within date, they are from the same pack as the ones that we used last week. No salt was added. Was it down to a combination of fast soaking and cooking them in the slow cooker? The ones in the Beastley casserole were soaked overnight, cooked in the slow cooker and were perfect. I’d love to find the answer as it would be great to be able to cook with beans almost off the cuff so to speak.

Somehow soaking overnight seems a much simpler, stress free option at the moment. Saves on fuel too.

The next week it was the same menu with a pivotal difference.
“It will have to be the bottled stuff, Fiona. It’s in the door of the fridge.”
I discovered that it was Hellmann’s, full fat. I could tell from his plate he wasn’t so keen on this one.

Since then the thought of that first homemade mayo has stayed fresh. Flickering on the edges. Jumping up when I reach for the Hellmann’s. Suddenly it had shimmied enough. I just had to try and make my own.

My post on Hellmann’s was my first dip into the mayonnaise sea. I knew that these are the sort of waters that can’t guarantee soft breezes. The comments in response fired my enthusiasm and last night I just had to try making mayo for the first time. Boston Baked Beans were on the menu and coleslaw was the perfect companion Our jar of mayo had been licked clean a week ago. It had to be the Magimix route as time was limited.

“All I’ve got to do is make the mayo. I’ll be ready in five minutes.”

An hour later we had mayo. A sturdy, almost sliceable version. For the first 45 minutes I had produced only a thin yellow soup. I was delighted to have transformed this into something that could be marketed as a substitute for hardcore on a building site. But the Tulip Fairy who writes Tulip’s Kitchen gave me enough pointers to change it into double the quantity of great homemade mayonnaise.

What went wrong?

Laziness and an unfamiliarity with the three main rules of mayonnaise making:

1. All ingredients need to be at room temperature
2. Equipment needs to be at room temperature (as Mary Contini reports in Dear Francesca “Warm the bowl a little too; the eggs want to feel comfortable.”)
3. The cook needs to be calm as the eggs need to be beaten until they have thickened sufficiently. In the Magimix this was testing. If you are going to use muscle power only Olympic shot putters need apply.

Thank goodness for the Tulip Fairy. She was the first to leave a comment on my Hellmann’s post – having made mayonnaise soup and transformed it into edible, delicious mayonnaise! With a click I was rereading her post and could understand her dilemma and joy of transforming the soup into pukka mayonnaise.

In seconds Magimix was washed, dried and ready for action. I used 2 egg yolks with a pinch of mustard and a little garlic and let M beat them for a good five minutes before adding a steady drizzle of the mayonnaise soup.

I could tell from the slapping, slurping sound that it had worked! It was a bit thick and eggy so I added (very s-l-o-w-l-y) 4 tablespoons of groundnut oil and a dessertspoonful of chilli sherry. Perfect spicy mayo. Tulip Fairy you are a star.

The Magimix recipe

2 egg yolks
1.5 tblsp of strong mustard (I used English mustard powder)
300ml of light tasting oil (I used groundnut)
2 tblsp of white wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Put egg yolks, mustard and a tblsp of oil into the mini bowl. Blend for 20 secs (!) and then slowly drizzle in half the remaining oil as the mixture thickens (I couldn’t see if the mixture had thickened so went ahead anyway). After a few minutes I added the rest of the oil. The instructions read
“Just before the end add the vinegar.”
“End?”
Magimix had been pounding away for ages so I poured it in.

The Tulip Fairy Cure is here

My mayo was on the table again tonight to accompany steak and chips.
“It’s better than Hellmann’s. It’s spicy and thicker but it’s good.”
Danny knows exactly how to encourage me to dip in again!

Please keep on posting your ideas and recipes. Over the next few weeks I hope to try them all.