From Sunday's chicken bones I cook a quiet stock

After Sunday bones and skin sit on the board: the meat already carved, the roast smell still in the room. Easy to bin the carcass “we already ate it” — and Tuesday’s pan is empty. I put the bones in a pan with water, onion and carrot, bring it quietly to a simmer, and cool it fast: stock for another day or the freezer.

From Sunday's chicken bones I cook a quiet stock. Yesterday’s chicken in cold slices is another note; a cube when there’s no bone its own; fat from the tin another story. Here it’s the carcass after the oven: a quiet stock — not a lecture about “proper restaurant stock”, and not a joint on the hob until midday.

After cooking I cool it quickly, into the cold under a lid. In the fridge two or three days; if longer — into the freezer in portions. I reheat until steaming hot, not “just warm”. A portion I’ve already reheated I don’t put back “for tomorrow again”. If the smell is sour or a murky film — into the bin, not on the plate. I don’t leave stock on the hob overnight “just because”.

I don’t need a carcass that cools on the board into the bin from shame. I need quiet stock from the fridge for soup or rice. At yours do Sunday’s chicken bones reach the pan — or already straight into the bin?