So, here is what I do...
1) At about 8:00 in the EVENING, I put a chicken in a pot and add 4 quarts of water and a splash of vinegar.
2) I bring it to a boil. It will start to foam, and I will scoop off the foam. Then, I will cover it (somewhat ajar) and let it simmer OVERNIGHT.
3) When I wake up in the morning, I drain the broth into another pot.
4) I put that pot of broth in the fridge and let it sit there for the ENTIRE DAY.
5) With the chicken, I dump it from the pot onto a plate.
6) Then I separate the bone / scraps from the meat. I throw the bones / scraps away.
7) I separate the chicken meat into four sections and put it on tin foil.
8) I wrap them up and put them in the freezer and then take them out whenever I need them.
9) Now, back to the broth. At the END OF THE DAY (or into the next day if I forget about it or don't feel like doing it at night), I take the broth out of the fridge. The fat will be hardened at the top. I scrape the fat off and throw it in the garbage.
10) Then, I pour the broth into jars, being careful not to overfill the jars (because I have overfilled the jars many, many times before and they will BREAK when frozen if they are overfilled. Believe me. I know.). So, for a jar that holds 4 cups, I will generally fill it with only 2 cups of broth. I put them in the freezer as well and take them out when needed. I yield around 3 quarts (12 cups) of broth.
Pretty good deal for the price of one chicken.
10 comments:
Have you ever tried baking the chicken first? Then you can have a yummy roasted chicken meal, still save the extra meat, and then boil the carcass with an onion, celery stalk, and carrot to make stock. A baked chicken is so much prettier than a boiled one... I will try it your way, though. Thanks for the info and pictures!
No, I haven't done it that way. I'm just following how Sally Fallon does it in Nourishing Traditions.
I also boil whole chickens almost just as you do but when i boil i add onion and celery to the pot. I cant tell that the chicken tastes any different but the stock is really good with the added flavors! :D
I think you're overcookIng your bird!
http://www.thesustainablekitchen.com/skblog/?p=1558
Remember Tonya the Chef from playgroup? Mother to Joaquin? She taught me how to cook a chicken, very similar but different cooking duration.
1. Rinse bird; put in pot covered w cold water.
2. Bring to almost boil. Cook for 15 min or so (remove grossness/foam)
3. Turn off heat & cover pot. Chx cooked thru in 1 hr or less.
4. Use chx meat and throw bones & a glug of vinegar back into pot.
5. Gently cook BELOW a simmer for 1-4 hours.
This yields a gelatinous broth--it is liquid when I put in fridge and next AM I scrape off the fat (and save--very norshing trad) and it is jello-y.
Also: crock pot chx is awesome/e-z and is a bit "overcooking" of a chxbut so easy.
1. Rinse bird. Salt bird. Put breast-side down in crock pot.
2. Cook on HIGH 1 hour. Then switch to LOW 2-3 hours.
3. Eat chx. Pour liquid gold into container & refrigerate. Very thick solid jello broth results.
Anyway--thanks for sharing! Love your pix. Do a taste test and see if less cook time is better or worse, or how texture is affected.
Strabby - I make the chicken according to what Sally Fallon does in Nourishing Traditions (and she says to simmer the bird for 6-24 hours!). And the reason she does this, I imagine but I'm not sure on this because she never actually says WHY she does it this way, is for getting the optimal nutrients into the broth. And I honestly never noticed it tasting bad/overdone. It just tastes like chicken.
But here's a question: Why do you save the fat that you scrape off? What do you use it for?
If you're tight on freezer space, you can also put your chicken broth in a gallon freezer bag. Lay flat in the freezer (like on a cookie sheet) for an hour or two, and then stuff it in where you will.
i used to follow sally's recs, but i thought the chicken was pretty darn dry. so now i bake the chicken first, take off meat, and throw bones in w/ water/vinegar, onions, carrots, celery. i actually cook the broth for about 48 hours. mostly because i am lazy and dread the clean up, but i have also read that it makes a super nutrient dense broth.
I bake the bird on low heat (250 for several hours) because of what Dr. Mercola says about cooked protein (causes cancer when overcooked, and most of it is). Then I remove the meat, saving the carcass for cooking broth. I make the broth similar to how you make yours, but I add onion and sea salt, too. I do not discard the fat. Sometimes the fat does gross me out, though. I have been adding chicken feet or extra necks to the broth, and this makes it extremely gelatinous.
I freeze my broth in plastic containers that fot neatly together (gladware or something like that) and can fill all the way to the top. I know exactly how much is in each container, so it is easy to take out and use for recipes. I put the broth in the containers cold, so that the plastic does not seep into the broth, then straight into the freezer.
This is such an interesting conversation--I love hearing how everyone goes about this process!
One more comment! America's Test Kitchen has an awesome recipe for boiling chicken, and it is almost like boiling eggs--putting the chicken in the water after you've turned off the boil, then checking the temp with a thermometer and pulling it out at a certain temp (165, I think). Can't remember the exact details, but chicken is extremely moist and delicious. They also did a taste test on broth recipes and found that onion gives all the flavor to broth and all the other vegetables are unnecessary for flavor. I am sure they add nutrition, but personally, I would rather eat the carrots and celery than overcook them in my broth.
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