Thursday, March 4, 2010

In Stock and Ready to Go

For years my pantry always had containers and cans of ready-to-use chicken broth. I experimented with different brands, some organic, some fat-free and low-sodium. They were convenient. They are convenient. But that's really their strongest selling point.

When I finally bought my own house and built a garage, there was no question but that I was going to have a freezer out there. That freezer has enabled me to make and store my own homemade chicken stock. And what a difference that's made, especially recently when I was under the weather and wanted to easily and quickly make some nourishing chicken soup.

You can easily find endless numbers of recipes on how to make stock. I've tried several. But my last batch has been remarkable for the ease and lack of waste involved. And, of course, the flavor. I had been at Lucky Seafood in Mira Mesa and decided to get some chicken legs there for stock. I've always liked how the big bones in the legs yield rich marrow for the liquid. But they didn't have pre-cut legs. I looked around the case and saw big, five-pound block-like bags of frozen chicken bones. While I was pondering if this was something to pursue, a customer came up to order them and told me she buys them all the time to make soup for her family. Sold.

Now, at an Asian market, the produce choices are going to be different from conventional American supermarkets. Ordinarily, I'd have bought carrots, celery, onions, turnips, and garlic for my stock. I found carrots and onions, but there were no turnips. Or parsnips, for that matter. So, I bought a large pale daikon radish. Weird, I know, but stay with me; it was a nice addition.

I'm not going to give you a formal recipe for this stock experiment, but this is what I did. I pulled out a huge pot, loaded it with the defrosted bones (primarily breast bones) after trimming away skin and fat, roughly cut carrots and the daikon, two quartered onions, and the unpeeled cloves of a big head of garlic. I had parsley from my garden so I threw some in. And, I finished it up with about a tablespoon of black peppercorns before filling the pot with water. I brought it all to a boil, skimmed the foam, reduced the temperature to low and let it simmer for about three hours. Then, using a ladle, I poured it through a chinois to get a clear broth and seasoned the rich liquid with salt. I filled perhaps a dozen different sized freezer containers, with labels showing the date.

But, we're not quite done. Once the liquid was removed I was left with cooked vegetables and bones. First, I pulled out the carrots and garlic cloves. Save those cloves. You've been given a lovely paste to spread on bread or add to pasta, sauces, and the like. I don't like cooked carrots much but my sweet dogs do. So, those were set aside with the residual meat I pulled off the chicken bones. There wasn't much -- hence my "lack of waste" comment above (usually, I'm left with lots of over-cooked, tasteless meat by the end) -- but just enough for a nice treat for the girls. Or so I thought. I packaged the carrots and chicken meat in little baggies for individual servings and put them in the freezer. Another benefit of using mostly bones and not meat is that my stock yield was easily doubled and the flavor was big. I tossed the cooked daikon.

Then I got sick. Well, not really sick, but my stomach was bothering me. I pulled out a favorite cookbook, Nina Simonds's A Spoonful of Ginger, looking for a chicken soup recipe that might go down easily but not require much fuss to make. I found several but, of course, I already had my stock. And, I had those frozen little packets of chicken and carrots. So, I riffed on various themes I saw in her book to come up with something of my own. The ginger and rice wine lift it from the traditional Jewish penicillin I'm used to, giving it a clean, delicious, and, yes, comforting flavor, which got even better each of the three progressive days I ate it.

Ginger Chicken Soup

8 cups of chicken stock
4 quarter-size slices of fresh ginger, smashed with the side of a heavy knife
1 cup rice wine (Symonds likes Shaoxing wine)
3 green onions, trimmed, cut in thirds

Combine all the ingredients in a large pot and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 20 minutes. At this point, remove the ginger and green onions and add other ingredients you may have on hand. I put in about half a cup of the chicken pieces and carrots, half a dozen sliced shitake mushrooms, and chopped baby bok choy. I let it simmer for another 20 minutes and it was ready.

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1 comment:

  1. Beautiful! Homemade bone broth is soooooo good! Commercial broth is more like chicken rinse water - so pale, so weak, and so NOT what your great grandmother would have recognized as a good broth. I stopped buying package broth several years ago (& commercial bouillon is full of questionable chemicals and ersatz ingredients). I now make broth regularly so I always have some on hand in the freezer (yes, it helps to have an extra freezer). If I buy a rotisserie chicken from Chick's I always ask for extra bones and they pack up a big bag for free as their bones make great broth.

    You won't need a calcium supplement if you consume some well-made bone broth every day (esp if you break the larger bones to expose the marrow and add a small "glug" of an acid like vinegar or lemon juice at the start of cooking, to help leach minerals into the water). Bone broths contain very easily absorbed (bioavailable) minerals that won't cause constipation like calcium supplements can, nor will they break the bank - in fact bone broths are a budget-saver on many levels. Bone marrow contains a rich source of mono-unsaturated fatty acids (the same as olive oil) as well as lots of flavor. The gelatin from rich broth is very good for the cells that line the intestine (where nutrients are absorbed), and your joints will thank you, too.

    Next time you go to the Asian market, see if they have any chicken feet. Seriously. Tossing in a few chicken feet to your chicken bone broth (yes, they have been cleaned, if not, parboil first and discard that liquid) will yield the richest, best tasting, and most gelatinous broth ever.

    I like to make bone broth in a large 7 qt slow cooker I bought just for broth making and so I can safely leave it unattended and simmering for as long as 24 hours (that length of time produces a rich golden broth even without roasting the bones).

    I'll often start with a whole chicken in the large slow cooker on a weekend day or a weeknight evening, filled with boiling water to get the cooking process started faster. I remove the chicken after a few hours when the meat is cooked through (thigh meat is at 170-185+°F) but not cooked to the point that all the flavor is cooked out of the meat (essentially it is poached whole). Carefully remove the chicken from the water (supported with a strong spatula to avoid hot splashes, esp if the chicken begins to fall apart). After cooling a few minutes on a platter, remove the skin, bones, and cartilage and put them pack in the water to continue simmering for a total of up to 24 hours. Try to keep the meat in fairly big chunks and leave the small bits on the bones for simmering in the broth. Pour a ladle of broth over the meat to keep it moist before storing). The now deboned meat goes into our dinner or into a storage box in the fridge for handy fast meals and snacks (or soup when the broth is done). If you cook a chicken like this once a week you can also make a weekly batch of broth so you'll always have it on hand. Yes, you won't have crispy skin like you get with roasted chicken, but overall, it's an easy way to have a ready supply of cooked chicken.

    This method is super easy, and while the total cooking time is admittedly long, the actual hands-on time is really only a few minutes for each step, so it's a real time saver, as well as a budget-wise way to cook (whole chickens or chicken legs are far less expensive than buying boneless chicken breasts and packaged broth.

    Don't overlook fish broth, too (made from skin, bones and heads of fish, including the iodine-rich thyroid glands and livers) - daily fish broth might just be one of the healthiest aspects of many traditional Asian diets (fish broth is often consumed for breakfast). Asian markets that prepare fresh live fish probably have lots of fish scraps available.