The Alchemy of Soup: From Roast Carcass to Liquid Gold

The alchemy of soup: from bones to liquid gold, it’s the chicken stock that makes the magic. It starts with your roasted chicken that was so good on Sunday. But the left-over carcass is fighting for fridge space and looking a little dried out by Wednesday. Should you throw it out? Never! Recycle your resources instead by making chicken stock. From here, you can easily make a bone broth, a sauce, a soup and enjoy the deep flavors of your light labors.

One of the first and most important things you will learn from Food for the Ages, which I learned from Lady Marian MacMillan, of Finlaystone Estate, is to use everything and waste nothing when it comes to food. Your roast chicken carcass is a perfect springboard for this lesson and a good chicken stock is the perfect liquid gold starter for many soups, such as minestrone, leek and potato, cream of cauliflower, vegetable and many others.

This makes enough stock for one soup: about 5 cups. If you aren’t ready to make soup right away, once it’s cooled, you can strain it and freeze it for later.

The Alchemy of Soup – Make the Chicken Stock

1 roasted chicken carcass

2 carrots, washed and cut in 2-inch pieces

1/2 onion, skin on, cut in half again

1 leek, sliced stem to stern from a quarter-inch under the root all the way to the tip then quarter turn and do it again cutting all the way through each time.  Keep  cutting and turning until you have ribbons of leek attached to the root.This exposes the dirt in which they were grown which could make your soup gritty if you don’t get it all out so rinse thoroughly in cold running water or in a bowl of water.

1 celery rib, cut in pieces

2 garlic cloves, smashed

Bouquet garni (1 bay leaf, 1/2 tsp thyme, 1/2 tsp parsley)

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Place all ingredients in a large pot, including any drippings from the roast chicken. Cover and simmer for 1.5 hours. Let the stock cool then strain it.