Ham Stock
from https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/

Like beef or chicken bones, your ham bone contains a ton of flavor that can be coaxed out with a simple simmer to create the backbone of your next dish.

Ham broth is very easy to make. Place a ham bone or hock in a pot with vegetables and herbs like carrots, celery, onion, garlic, parsley, and a bay leaf. It's a great way to use up leftover veggies and herbs: You can use the ends of celery, pieces of onion left from another recipe, or even just the stems of parsley sprigs (save the beautiful leaves for another use!). Black peppercorns add subtle warmth and spice, but it's best to hold off on adding salt until the end of cooking, or when you use the stock in the final dish.

A good stock is not to be rushed—plan to simmer a ham hock for at least 3 hours to allow the water to extract all of the bone’s meaty flavors.

FMM: I have found if you continue to cook the broth down after straining out the ham bone and vegetables, you can get a nice concentrated ham stock. I had about 2 1/2 quarts of ham stock after straining (as well as refrigerating and removing the fat on top), which tasted a little watery. After cooking the stock down further, I ended up with 1 quart of very favorful stock. What made me think of doing this was Brian once made an excellent Southern dish called Ham Bone Dumplings. The broth was very flavorful and fairly dark in color. He may have used ham drippings to make it; I do not remember. The next time he made it, the broth was thinner and not as flavorful, The ham stock I cooked down, was also darker in color and much more flavorful than the strained stock.

1 ham bone or hock
1 yellow onion, peeled and cut into 6 wedges
2 carrots, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 stalks celery, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 head of garlic, halved crosswise
4 sprigs parsley
10 whole black peppercorns
1 bay leaf (optional)

Combine the ham bone or hock, onion, carrots, celery, garlic, parsley, peppercorns and bay leaf in a 6- to 8-quart pot. Cover with 3 quarts of cold water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Skim off any foamy bubbles from the surface. Skimming off the scum and fat that accumulates on the surface of the stoup/stock is very important to create a nice, clean soup/stock. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook for 3 hours. (You just want to see a few bubbles rise to the surface here and there.)

Strain the stock through a fine-mesh strainer, then store in jars. The stock can be refrigerated for up to one week or stored in the freezer for up to three months.