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May. 4, 2006
Easy Chicken Broth!
We are moms to large families with a limited amount of time, money, energy, but a plethora of kids. Feed those children something wonderfully delicious, very healthy, economical and put their little hands to work helping you create it.
This is how you make the simplest chicken stock:
Put a chicken in a pot, cover it with water and cook it.
Take a strainer; put it over another bowl or pot. Ladle the chicken and broth through it.
Cool the broth by filling your sink with cold water and ice and setting the pot in the sink.
Ladle it into freezer boxes.
You now have something much more delicious and nutritious than a can of yellow water. And this was the most bland and basic way to get chicken broth.
Oh and there's a bonus. You now have a cooked chicken to cut up and use in a casserole, soup, enchiladas, chicken salad, etc.
Now, let's make it a bit tastier:
Add vegetables, especially onions and garlic, with the chicken before you cook it.
The longer you cook it the tastier the stock will be.
Let's make it more nutritious:
Add 2 Tablespoons of vinegar; it leeches the minerals out of the bones. And let it simmer for at least six hours. The longer it simmers the more minerals and gelatin you pull from the bones.
Add a bunch of parsley 10 minutes before finishing for more minerals.
For the best tasting chicken, start with a young chicken that is defrosted and do not cook it too long, only until the meat pulls away from the bones. Take the chicken out of the pot; let it cool a bit until you can handle it without burning your hands. Then take all of the meat off of the bones, cut it into bite sized pieces and put it into freezer bags or containers. Throw the carcass back into the pot and let it simmer all day, then strain and freeze.
For the tastiest broth, use an old chicken and let it simmer all day long without taking the meat. Let the broth get all the goodies from the meat. By the end of the day, the meat will be rubbery and tasteless but the broth will be delicious. The old chickens make a really rich broth.
For more taste and more health add these things to your stockpot:
2 medium onions, quartered *Leave the brown dry skins on for a dark pretty color to your broth.
8 whole cloves, stud the onions with them
3 ribs of celery with leaves, cut into chunks
3-4 sprigs of fresh parsley
1 leek, with the green, cut lengthwise
2 medium carrots, cut into several chunks
2 bay leaves
3 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
1 1/2 teaspoons of sea salt
6-8 black peppercorns
large pinch of dried rosemary, thyme, sweet basil, sage, savory or 1 Tablespoon of fresh
large pinch of celery seeds
After you make roast chicken for supper, refrigerate the leftover bones to make broth with the next day.
If you want to de-fat the broth, cool it in the refrigerator and the fat forms a hard yellow crust on the top that is easy to lift off and dispose of.
Now, instructions for the large family: Get out all of your large pots, kettles, and crock pots. Do several birds at once. Make the work light by using all those little and big hands to de-bone the meat, strain the broth, and fill the freezer.
This is an easy way you and yours can reclaim a lost skill. Teach it to your children so that they will learn how to cook deliciously, nutritiously and economically wonderful meals. You can do it!
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