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I am planning on using a whole chicken to make a batch of chicken broth, which as I understand is made using the meat as well as bones and vegetables and various seasonings. After that, I will take the meat off the bones. Could I then use those bones to make a chicken stock? Should I roast the bones first? I just worry that all the flavour will already be gone from bones as they were used in the broth.
Thanks to anyone who answers!
I don't think you can re-use the bones and expect to get a good product, no.
But I wouldn't use a whole chicken to make stock in the first place. Use necks, backs, and wings instead -- much cheaper! You can roast the pieces first if you'd like, or not. You'll get different results, both good.
If you actually made a quality broth with your meat and bones, you will have extracted the vast majority of the flavor and gelatin from both.
There will be very little point to making a second stock from the same bones, as they should have little left to give.
You can re-use chicken bones for more broth if you don't overcook the chicken to start. Use the chicken skin too.
I like to use a Chinese chicken-poaching method I think is called 'white cooked chicken'to make a soup broth and a cooked chicken at the same time. Then I debone the chicken and use the bones and skin to either make another broth or enrich the first one further.
Submerge a small (no more than 3lbs) chicken in cold water in a deep pot. Put on a lid and bring it to a boil. Turn off the heat but leave the lid on. Set a timer for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes the chicken is cooked. Separate the meat from the bones and skin and serve it in the broth or with a sauce over noodles (dandan sauce is nice) or in chicken salad, enchiladas, chicken pot pie, etc.
If you're making soup, you'll want to season the initial broth while deboning the chicken, for example by salting the broth and then simmering some garlic and ginger or a chopped carrot and a bay leaf in the broth.
Save the skin and bones from the chicken as you're stripping the meat. You can either return them back to the original broth to simmer longer and make it richer, or place them in a new pot with cold water just to cover, put on a lid, and simmer overnight. This will yield a second delicate but still flavorful broth.
I freeze all my broth unsalted so I can later combine it with more heavily salted braising liquids to make a nicely balanced soup.
