Stock is simple. Water, bones, heat, time. But, it can be far more detailed. In this case, I used left over vegetables and a touch of seasoning. I had leftover celery, fennel, red bell pepper, and carrot. After peeling the carrot and ribbing the celery, I broke it all into large pieces and sauteed a few minutes in oil to get it a little brown. Then added the broken carcass. Sometimes, people will give you the carcass because they won’t use it. This one was a Sam’s smoked turkey with plenty of meat on it. Now, I could have reserved the meat, I could have roasted the bones. Instead I just chucked it in and added water until covered by about 3 inches. Bring to a boil, add any salt(less with a smoked turkey that has meat) peppercorns, about a dozen for me, and simmer all day. You can do about 4 hours with chicken, longer doesn’t hurt because these bones are larger. This time I scooped out the bubbles you see and as I lowered the simmer, removed the skin of fat, and chunks of fat as they surfaced. You will get less of this after about an hour. No more than 4 hours from completion(to prevent bitterness), add a sachet. In this case I added dried thyme, fresh parsley, and a few bay leaves to a teabag, and clamped to the edge of the pot. After a total of 8 hours, strain into another pot. After letting sit a while to drop under 200° or there about, add some ice if you have it to lower the temperature slightly. Cover, and refrigerate. Also save that oil and scum you removed. The next day, take any scum or fat that hardened and move to the scum glass. The liquid fat will float, and harden in the fridge in this glass.
On the next step, you will use that fat in sauteing more vegetables and possibly Browning any other meat you want to add, like ham. Then add the stock, salt, more herbs and seasoning if you like, and simmer for 20 minutes with leftover turkey for soup. You can also use the reserved fat to make a roux of sorts for your turkey gumbo.
Another alternative on day two is to reduce the stock by boiling it down. At this point you are approaching a demi glace, and should get a gel when cold that can be frozen in cubes, and added like bullion.
by GenEnnui