For the last couple of years I’ve been making my own homemade turkey stock and broth. (Beef and Pork stock too!) Now I don’t know the technical difference between the two but I think it has to do with how much you cook your liquid down and how concentrated the flavors get.
This Thanksgiving turkey breast provided more than a dozen meals!
Saturday I finally pulled out the turkey breast carcass left-over from Thanksgiving. (After Thanksgiving, I put it into a gallon freezer bag and shoved it in the freezer). The weather forecast here in Southern California called for a weather front and rain for the next couple of days. Perfect for turkey noodle soup! And stock.
I figured what I’d do is cook it down on Saturday and then use most of the stock to make a soup on Sunday and use the rest for “stock-cicles”.
The carcass started out as a fantastic Thanksgiving turkey breast that I cooked on the grill. We got several meals out of it—turkey dinner, turkey left-overs, turkey sandwiches and before we got sick and tired of turkey I froze the carcass with its left-over bits of meat hiding in nooks and crannies.
Making homemade turkey stock is simple. Put about 8 cups of water into the slow cooker (or into a big stock pot on the stove). Dump the carcass in it and let it slow simmer all day long. After 4 hours it will start to look like broth and start to smell good (and you may need to keep the cover slightly cracked open to let some steam out and reduce the liquid). After 6 hours it’ll start having more “color” and will taste rich. You might want to add a bit more water and let it cook down some more.
This homemade stock got rich and flavorful and creamy.
I took the pot off overnight and put it in the fridge. Mainly I wanted the fat to come to the top so that I could skim it off the next morning.
I poured off about a cup and a half of the liquid and put it into an ice tray and popped it in the freezer. There was about 4 cups left which became the foundation for the soup.
Now I’ve got some really good, concentrated turkey stock cubes. I’ll use these instead of the runny, watery chicken and turkey stock that you get in a carton laden with salt. Usually I can use one cube and about a quarter cup of water in any recipe. Sometimes I toss a cube of poultry or beef stock into a sauté pan when I’m cooking up dinner. They add great flavor.
Put the cubes in a freezer bag and pop one out whenever you need some extra flavor!
So here’s the thing—the only part of that turkey breast that didn’t get used was the bones. Everything else got eaten. The homemade turkey stock I made was really cheap. It was made with parts of the bird that I used to just throw away. It’s worth the effort.
That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good. Eat Cheap. Be Grateful!
