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Tonight, we thought we’d be all pioneer-like and cook an entire chicken and make some crazy good chicken stock. Never mind that pioneers most likely didn’t have the stellar ugly 1980s black/cream stove that we do. And, never mind that they most likely didn’t have Teflon. But, then again, we have no friggin clue as to what we’re doing, so it should equal out pretty well, I think.

Step 1: Acquire a whole chicken. We cheated a little here. I have issues with killing and then peeling feathers or skin off of things, so we got ours all wrapped in plastic and mostly ready to go. I DO realize where my food comes from, I’m just not quite ready to do all of the…um…preparations. Yeh, that’s it.

Step 2: Google google and more google, and then call my friend Mk for advice, too.

Step 3: Hand the chicken over to husband so he can wash the blood off. He hands it back to me. I hand it back to him and tell him to remove it’s innards. He eyes me suspiciously and pokes the chicken with his knife. I pray a prayer of thanksgiving that I am not this chicken. He finds what’s supposed to be removed and begins to gag, handing the chicken back to me. I then stick my hand into the chicken and begin removing whatever comes out. Honestly, I have no clue what all of it was…the package said to remove the gizzard and such, so I guess that’s it. It also said to remove the neck.

Step 4: Find the neck. Common sense tells us to flip the chicken and we should find the neck. We find a little extra bone and try to cut around it but decide to abort mission and just cook it all, since TECHNICALLY it’s going to be removed later and added to the pot again to continue making chicken stock. It’s obviously not got poison juices in it. Or, maybe it does. And, in that case…consider this my goodbye letter.

Step 5: Rinse it again. Just to make me feel better.

Step 6: Exfoliate the chicken. With 2 Tablespoons of salt. Do not rinse. Add a dash of pepper so it doesn’t look so pasty, and put it in the pot. Add water to cover the chicken.

Step 7: Bring water to a simmer. Cook this way for 3 hours, being careful to not bring to a rolling boil. We advise you to leave the chicken alone and not try to pet it at this point. But, you do what you want. (Note: If you decide to not listen to me and let it come to a rolling boil – or get lazy and forget to check on it…which is probably what will happen to me – just scoop the disgusting white film off, although preferably NOT with your hands. It might hurt.)

After 3 hours, the experts (being people who know what they’re doing, not me) say the chicken should be done. If you believe them, then you would hypothetically remove the chicken and let it cool. Then, take all of the disgusting stuff that you pulled out of the chicken in Step 3 and add that to the “chicken water”. Once the chicken has cooled a bit, remove the skin and bones and whatever else and add that back to the pot along with your herbs (parsley, bay leaves, thyme, rosemary…anything you want) and any other extras like carrots, garlic, celery, potatoes, onions, etc.

After a few hours, strain out the solid stuff and trash it – although I think you can fry gizzards (*puke*). The leftover “chicken water” is your chicken stock. Separate it into smaller containers to cool faster and then refrigerate it overnight so the fat can separate, which you’ll skim off the top.

You can add some chicken back to the stock to put in the refrigerator to soak up some extra flavor, too. We plan to cook some rice and frozen veggies and add the stock to that for flavor. Other than that, we have no set plans and cannot guarantee what we will end up coming up with. Hopefully food. The edible kind. That’s the goal, at least.

I’ll let you know when it’s finished.

….Unless I die from chicken necks.