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bowl is cool, put it in the fridge. 5
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VARIATIONS
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    This pale stock is known as fond blanc. To make a darker, more flavoursome variety, roast the wings first. Anoint them with a little oil and put them into a hot oven (gas mark 6/200°C for about 30 minutes, or until browned).
    Your butcher may sell you cheap chicken carcasses. You could roast them first, too.
    If you roast the chicken wings first, deglaze 6 the roasting pan with half a cup of water, and add this liquid to the pot.
    Don’t throw away the remains of a roasted chicken. Gather all the bones and leftover bits from people’s plates, and put them into the stockpot with the carcass, again adding vegetables later. If you’re lucky enough to have bought a chicken that came with giblets, and haven’t used them already for the gravy with your roast, add them; but leave out the liver, which gives the stock a bitter taste.
    You don’t have to peel the onions: there’s goodness in the skin. Be cautious with the carrots, which add a good deal of sweetness to the liquid. Mushrooms and unpeeled garlic cloves are other possible ingredients. You might add herbs, too: parsley, thyme and bay work well.
    If you’ve used chicken wings, don’t throw them away. They are forgiving things, and remain moist and tender even after long cooking. Allow them to cool, and cover with a marinade ( see here ). Heat them in a gas mark 6/200°C oven for 15 minutes, or under a grill.
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WHY YOU DO IT
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    1 • Don’t drown the stock . You can add more water later, if you have too little. The flavour of a concentrated stock that has been diluted will be better than that of a watery stock that has been boiled down. You know that you’ve got the ratio of water to meat right when, after cooling, the stock has turned into a jelly (see point 3, below).
    Don’t add salt to a stock. You may want to reduce the liquid later; that will increase the concentration of any salt in it. Add whole peppercorns, if you like, but not ground pepper, which after long simmering will impart an acrid taste.
    2 • Covering the pot . If you want to create a restaurant-standard, clear broth, don’t do this. As the liquid comes to a simmer, scum created by the connective tissue in the meat and from the bones rises to the surface. You can spoon it off and throw it away. But further material of this kind will continue to rise, and, if not discarded, will sink back into the liquid and discolour it. Do you mind? If you’re a home cook, and if you’re not planning to show off to your friends by producing a translucent consommé, probably not. This stuff won’t do you any harm. If you’re a chef, you may want to cook your stock uncovered, with the merest blip showing on the surface of the liquid from time to time; and even after that you may need to clarify the liquid with egg whites. (You whip the egg whites, add them to reheated stock, and discard them once the impurities have adhered to them.)
    I cover the pot, even though the build-up of steam under the lid causes quite vigorous bubbling. I do so for the sake of simplicity, knowing that I can leave the stock without worrying too much about evaporation, and also that I am ensuring the maximum possible conversion of collagen to gelatine (see the next point).
    3 • Cooking time . I don’t think that any other preparation is the subject of such variations of advice about cooking times. ‘Eight hours with the water steaming but not bubbling will reward you with a jewel-bright, flavour-packed consommé,’ Richard Whittington writes in
Home Food
. Other writers do not go quite so far, but usually agree that long cooking is good. But Michel Roux advises a one-and-a-half-hour simmer, asserting that ‘long cooking can be detrimental’. Most radical is Shaun Hill, who in
How To Cook Better
advises a simmering time of 40 minutes.
    Simmering the meat and bones extracts flavour and converts collagen – a protein from the bones, skin and connective tissue –