Yeah the gelatin trick is huge. Store-bought stock/broth does a decent job of tasting like real chicken stock, and then the added gelatin does a decent job of feeling like real chicken stock.
It's as close to the real deal as it is probably worth to the home cook. I recently made a huge batch of beef stock and turkey stock over the same two days. After skimming the fat, all the filtering, heating and cooling, and portioning, then freezing, I hit me that while this stock is damn good, I had spent an absolute shitton of money, burned a bunch of fossil fuels, spent a bunch of electricity, and a lot of time, for a couple quarts of stock. A quart of kitchen basics low sodium and two packets of Knox gelatin get me 80% of the way there for fractions of the cost and time.
The trick is to freeze the stock in ice cube trays (the latex ones that make 2β cubes), and divide the spoils of your effort among a future dozen or so recipes. The marginal value of half a cup of homemade stock in a dish is typically massive.
It's as close to the real deal as it is probably worth to the home cook. I recently made a huge batch of beef stock and turkey stock over the same two days. After skimming the fat, all the filtering, heating and cooling, and portioning, then freezing, I hit me that while this stock is damn good, I had spent an absolute shitton of money, burned a bunch of fossil fuels, spent a bunch of electricity, and a lot of time, for a couple quarts of stock. A quart of kitchen basics low sodium and two packets of Knox gelatin get me 80% of the way there for fractions of the cost and time.