Homemade Stock - Worth the Effort?

[Jolteh]

I've been buying whole chickens recently instead of packs of breast meat, mainly because it's cheaper.

Normally I roast the chicken whole, leave it to cool and then strip away all the meat. The meat generally does two meals for myself and my girlfriend, and I've been trying to be holistic by making stock with the carcass.

Normally I whack a carrot, and onion, some bay leaves and peppercorns in the stockpot. After boiling away for a couple of hours I'm normally left with a litre or two of pretty rich chicken stock.

I'm really starting to question if it's worth it though. I totally get that the stock probably tastes nicer and it's probably got less salt and stuff in it, but the effort seems a bit much for what will essentially be a simple ingredient. Beyond the cost of the extra ingredients I stick in, I'm leaving the hob on for a couple of hours for it, so I'm guessing it doesn't work out that cheap in the long run.

Thinking about it, there's some pretty decent supermarket options for stock now. Beyond the normal powders and cubes you can get a variety of jellies and pastes, as well as cartons of ready-made stock. For the majority of things that I cook, I'd bet I couldn't tell the difference between homemade stock and a chicken oxo cube or whatever.

Anyone else feel the same?

 

[Jolteh]

For the record, I did use my stock in the end.

Made a (I thought) pretty decent risotto bianco topped with some roasted summer veg. Was aiming for something lighter than the normal heavy risotto, which came out okay. I didn't add any salt since I was whacking a bunch of parmesan in there, plus the normal complaint about shop stock is that it's too salty. Anyway, the lass reckoned it was under-seasoned and added her own salt at the table, so it was a facepalm moment for me.

With the rest of the stock I made up some onion gravy for my favourite bangers and mash. It was nice, but it works just as well with the legendary marigold bouillon.

I think I'm gonna stick to decent shop stock. I know that making your own is really in vogue at the moment, because Jamie Oliver says it's cool, but boiling 5 litres of water on my stove for two hours is just too much for something I can get instantly and for pennies.