Call it poached or call it boiled; if you can boil water, you can say bye-bye to paying through the beak for prepared grocery store or deli chicken. If you want to make chicken stock, buy a whole chicken and cut it up; if you just want to cook some chicken breasts for salads or entrees, that’s fine too. But for stock or dumplings, you definitely want the extra flavor and texture from the dark meat and the bones.

• Chicken (1 whole or 4-6 skin-on breasts)
• Celery, diced (2-3 stalks)
• 1 onion, cut into large chunks
• Carrots, cut into chunks (scant 1 cup)
• Salt and pepper OR Lawry’s salt

If you just want some cooked chicken to use in other recipes: Put chicken into deep stockpot; cover with water. Add vegetables and seasonings; bring to boil over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until done.

Pull the cooked chicken from the stockpot and place into large bowl. Remove the skin and bones from the chicken while it’s still hot. Refrigerate chicken immediately for later use. You can discard the cooking liquid.

For chicken stock: Cook for at least 1 hour or until chicken is beginning to fall off the bones, bones are beginning to brown, and the water is looking sludgy. Strain the hot stock into a large pot (we usually use a Dutch oven), save chicken meat separately, and discard vegetables.

Chill stock overnight in refrigerator. The next day, skim any fat from the surface of the broth and discard. To serve as soup, heat and season to taste. Use fresh stock within 2-3 days; to freeze, pour into ice cube trays. When frozen, put cubes into large plastic freezer bags. Use within 2-3 months.

Tip: When you have leftover unused celery or carrots, chop them into chunks and toss them in a freezer bag – the next time you want to make stock or add some heft to a stew or soup, you have vegetables, already chopped, just waiting for you – you don’t even have to thaw them first.

Another tip: Keep a box of disposable vinyl (non-latex) gloves in the kitchen – the kind you see fast-food workers wear. If you put gloves on your hands, you can strip meat from the chicken bones without having to wait for the chicken to cool down first – and the less time cooked meat spends near room temperature, the less time nasty bacteria have to make themselves at home. Also, the gloves are nice for other ooky kitchen jobs like icing cookies, peeling bacon out of the package, and cleaning the unidentifiable stuff from of the bottom of the produce drawer.

Chicken Salad

The reward for all the trouble of making basic chicken: tasty and moist chicken salad.

• Cooked chicken, cut into bite-sized chunks
• Hellman’s mayonnaise

Toss chicken in mayonnaise to coat, and if you like, add any of the following ingredients you like: chopped bread and butter or sweet pickles, sliced almonds, chopped toasted pecans or walnuts, halved seedless green grapes, dried cranberries or apricots, diced Granny Smith apple, diced celery or onion, diced fresh or roasted red pepper, or anything else that sounds good.

Serve on Pepperidge Farm original white bread, a sturdy multigrain bread, a chewy baguette, or a nice smoky pumpernickel.

Photo by JK Sloan on Unsplash