Does your Caterer make the extra effort?

  Benefits of hand-made Stock

These days it's all about SPEED. It's who can get you what you want in the shortest time possible. We all have a million things to do and so rapidity is requisite.  However, quality gets slashed into bits when speed is the prerequisite. Are cheap plastic toys made in China coming to your mind?

For you party, especially for your wedding, you don't want second-rate food; Savory hand makes 95% of all our food, ensuring that you get the freshest food for the best taste. One way we ensure the quality of our food is through home-made chicken stock.

Hand making your chicken stock is one of the untold culinary secrets- untold for those who've never been to cooking school. Our Chef is happy to tell you all the in's and out's of making a good chicken stock. 

"All meat stock, whether it be chicken or beef, is the basis to all good cooking. It helps coax the maximum flavor out of your food and give it that 'WOW' factor. You just can't get the same richness of flavor out of a can.

Our simmering chicken stock. Wish you could smell it now!

"There are essentially two types of ingredients for a chicken stock: the aromatics and the meat. The aromatics are the flavorful vegetables: celery, carrots, and onions. The meat is usually chicken or beef. Don't get confused when I say 'meat' because I really mean the bones instead of the flesh; all the flavor comes from the bones. You can buy the bones from a local butcher, but if your grocery store doesn't have a butcher you can use the wings and back (for chicken) or ribs (for beef) in a pinch.

Celery is an important aromatic in both beef and chicken stock. Here, we are weighing our ingredients.

"After measuring and chopping the vegetables, put all your ingredients in a big stock pot- the bigger the better- and let simmer on low heat for 6-12 hrs. This coaxes the most flavor out of the ingredients and ensures a really flavorful stock. In my chicken stock I like to add celery, carrots, onions, leeks, Italian parsley, peppercorn, thyme, basil, bay leaves and mushrooms. Then for beef stock I usually add tomatoes in the mix.

At Savory we have a 100qt stock pot for our chicken and beef stock. We let ours simmer for 12 hrs

"Once the stock is all cooked, strain and pour into containers and freeze. You can scrape off the excess fat easier after it's frozen. Use like normal in your recipes and you will notice a HUGE difference in the flavor of your dishes. Home made chicken stock is too good to pass up!" -Executive Chef Lou Crandall

You'll notice a difference in taste in our food in comparison to other companies. Even restaurants cut corners! We promise to deliver the freshest ingredients and the best tasting food because we believe life is too short for ordinary food.

Try making your own chicken stock!

Basic Chicken Stock
Lou Crandall, Savory Catering
This recipe fits a 15qt stock pot. Adjust recipe as needed for your purposes.

Ingredients
10 lbs chicken bones
3 lbs yellow onions
2 lbs leeks, cut in 1" pieces
2 lbs carrots
3 pounds celery, leaves included
8 dried bay leaves
80 black peppercorns
8 sprigs fresh thyme
1 bunch Italian flat-leaf parsley
8 oz mushrooms
enough water to cover ingredients by 2"

Directions
Rinse bones under cold, running water. Remove any large parts of fat or skin.
Fill pot with very cold water, about 2" higher than the bones.
Turn stove and heat through until almost boiling. Turn heat down to a gentle simmer. Do not stir
Skim off the scum that forms on the top. Repeat until no more scum appears.
Add rest of ingredients and simmer mixture gently for 6-12 hours.
Strain mixture and cool immediately. Freeze extra for later use.