Vanderbrew

In our house cooking the chicken and making stock generally falls on my shoulders. I don’t mind at all - I thoroughly enjoy it. Making stock is a really liberating experience for me.

I’m one of those very focused, engineer types who can cook most things that there’s a recipe for, but don’t you dare ask me to improvise or deviate from the recipe - except for chicken stock.

Chicken stock is really cool stuff. You just start with a basic recipe (chicken, carrots, celery, garlic, etc) and then you can change it up as you see fit. From what I can tell, it’s hard to make a bad chicken stock. It’s the one cooking area where I don’t need a recipe. I just throw some stuff together and wing it.

Now, some of you may be wondering, “Yeah, that’s cool, I get it…but Lime and Cilantro?” Well, we cooked “Mexican-Style Lime and Cilantro Whole Chicken”[1] in the slow cooker and had soft tacos for dinner tonight. I always make stock from the carcass and I was looking at this thinking “Man, I’d really like to make stock…but this’ll have a funny flavor…”.

Then it hit me - I’ll accentuate the lime and cilantro flavors and we’ll use it as a base for Tortilla Soup and other soups like that! So, in addition to the onion, carrots and celery I usually put in the stock, I threw in the lime rind and cilantro we cooked in the cavity of the bird. Also, I tossed in some additional cilantro and a couple dried chilies.

I’m hoping it turns out well and will be another step along the path of free-form cooking. We’ve already got a Tortilla Soup recipe picked out (slow cooker one, from the same cookbook) and we’ll be making it on Tuesday.

I’ll be sure to let you all know how it turns out.

[1] Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook