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Having made stock and strained it, can the meat and vegetables boiled up in the stock be used for anything, or should they go in the bin?

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Pig food...all the flavour has been sucked out of it and is in the liquid where you want it, I would hope. If you used meats to make your stock they will be tender but flavourless and dry. If you insist on using the meat then you're just going to have to serve it in an intensely flavoured sauce to cover for the lack of taste - then the sauce is the dish and the meat becomes more of a garnish. It's been done to max your food dollar but as chicken tossed in the pot are usually old tough meatless birds that you couldn't serve otherwise, I wouldn't waste prime meat $$ on that. – Chef Flambe Mar 6 '12 at 7:05

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The veggies aren't very palatable after such a long simmering (unless you like celery paste, I guess), but if you've thrown a whole chicken in the resulting meat is wonderfully tender and flavorful.

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This is exactly what we do, and it works great. The chicken bits are good for things like risotto, and more. – sysadmin1138 Jul 20 '10 at 22:53
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I would dump them, with the caveat that some chefs reserve bones for making a second, lighter stock. I've only heard of this being done with Veal, so your mileage may vary.

I've also heard of people combining stock and chicken salad making by throwing a whole chicken in to the stock pot, then using the white meat for salad.

This offends me on many levels, but I'll just say that it probably makes for bad chicken salad, and also almost certainly makes for cloudy stock.

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Why on earth would that make for bad chicken salad? – ceejayoz Jul 20 '10 at 22:01
I'm imagining saltless overcooked white breast meat as a start; In my head, seasoned roasted white meat would be a much better start. I admit that I haven't tried it, though. – Peter V Jul 20 '10 at 22:03
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I've tried it, and it's heavenly. Boil a whole chicken with onion, carrot, celery, herbs, salt and pepper for about 90 minutes. Remove the white meat for later use and continue cooking the bones for another 60-90 minutes. Tasty broth and tasty meat. Great if you're making pot pie. – ceejayoz Jul 20 '10 at 22:05
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Veal bones are sometimes used a second time, "Remouillage" or 're-wetting' of the bones. This secondary simmering of the bones is usually done with just water for a few more hours. This secondary cooking water is then used as the water for the next batch of actual veal stock. The benefit is to extract the mamximum flavor from veal bones before discarding. The drawback is that you then have to have room in your refrigerator, cooler, or freezer for the secondary stock until you make your next batch. – Darin Sehnert Jul 20 '10 at 23:54
Remi is extremely useful in restaurant contexts, when you need liquid with some flavour but nothing that will assert itself in the final product. I am at a serious loss to imagine a useful frequent use for remi at home. – daniel Jul 21 '10 at 6:03
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If there's any flavor left in chicken meat on the bone, or much collagen left in the bones after stock making, I'd say it hasn't simmered long enough. The stock should be both flavorful and unctuous, which means the meat will be flavorless and the bones brittle. Overnight is great for this, at a very low temperature - but with aromatics added later.

If you boil your stock, the tiny orifices in the bones from where collagen leaches will be sealed off, and the result will be much thinner than it could otherwise be.

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Try pressure cooking for stock - way easier than overnight. – rfusca Mar 5 '12 at 1:46

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