Ellen’s Fabulous Chicken Broth
Guest Article: © The material on this page is copyright by Ellen Ussery, January 2008 and October 2011. It is an update of an article first published in the February/March 2008 issue of Backyard Poultry Magazine, with modifications based on her evolving techniques with this fundamental recipe.
The best use for old hens declining in productivity is the making of broth. As advised in the article on butchering, you should clean and save the feet when you slaughter your birds. (You can save the heads as well, but always save the feet.) There is no more valuable addition to the stockpot.
This update was added to the site October 4, 2011.
Chicken broth is not only a delicious base upon which to build a flavorful soup or sauce—it is an extremely nourishing food in its own right. Properly prepared, it is an excellent source of minerals, including calcium, magnesium and potassium. It is rich in gelatin, an extraordinary digestive aid that, although not a complete protein, helps the body more fully utilize protein from other foods—in effect, you do not need to eat as much protein. And modern research has confirmed traditional wisdom: Chicken broth does indeed help prevent and moderate colds and flu.
What follows is not so much a recipe as some guidelines about how I make chicken broth now, based on my own experimentation and requirements. I will also tell you how I used to make it, and why I made the changes. Once you understand the possibilities, experiment with your own chickens in the context of your own lifestyle—if you can find a method that fits comfortably into your schedule, you will be more likely to make it on a regular basis. But let me say up front that it is almost impossible to make a failed chicken broth. Once I added too much water relative to the amount of chicken parts I was using. But even this was still usable as a soup base. I just had to add more flavoring ingredients to the final soup.
Of course, the quality of your chickens is of primary importance—if you raise them yourself, you are off to the best possible start. When slaughtering your chickens, be sure to clean and save the feet, which contribute a lot of collagen, the source of that all-important gelatin—a component as well of the bones, muscles, skin, and tendons. If you don’t save them for your dog to eat raw, you can use other spare parts as well—necks, hearts, gizzards, even the heads. If you cut chickens into serving pieces and do not want to eat the backs, reserve them as well for making broth. In addition, the carcasses of cooked birds (from a roast chicken, for example) can be saved. I hold all these ingredients in the freezer wrapped tightly in plastic until ready to make broth.
I usually start with a whole stewing hen, the older the better—an older hen has more collagen and more flavor. I surround it in the pot with as many of the other parts as I have on hand, then cover—just barely—with water. Occasionally I use mostly feet, along with recycled bones of previously cooked birds. But in either case I use a pruning shears (the same Felco No 2 pruner which Harvey reserves for butchering chickens) to cut open all the long bones, as the enhanced extraction makes a good gel. I then add 2 tablespoons of vinegar (or lemon juice) per gallon of water and let sit for an hour. This soak in the acidulated water helps to extract the minerals. I then bring it to a boil and skim off the scum that rises to the surface. After that I reduce the heat for the gentlest possible simmer, and cook until a poke with a fork indicates that the meat will easily come off the bone. The length of time this takes will vary, depending on the age of your chicken. The older, more flavorful chickens may take six to ten hours or more, whereas a young bird might be ready in an hour or two. At this point I take out the stewing hen, or whatever fresh chicken parts I started with, let them cool slightly, and remove the meat, which I reserve for later use. Note that you need to be careful that no tiny bones stay with the meat.
At this point I should say that I used to cook the broth in a huge stockpot. But recently I have been using a 2-gallon slow cooker. This way I have no worries about the flame going out on my gas stove during the long cooking. Other benefits are the slow cooker’s timer, and easier meal preparation when I don’t have to contend with a crowded stovetop. If you have a woodstove, that’s another great option.
After you have removed the meat from the bones, put them and the skin back into the pot. I used to then simmer the broth another fifteen to twenty hours. However, the firmness of the gelatin, once the broth was fully chilled, varied considerably. Recently I have come to understand that, once gelatin is extracted, too much additional cooking will break it down; so what I do now is just let everything sit in the pot until the next day for a period of passive extraction. Then I bring it to a boil and simmer it for about an hour just to make sure it is sterilized.
To be honest, I am not sure that this passive method actually does extract more minerals; nor do I know that overcooked (broken-down) gelatin is less valuable, nutritionally, than when more firmly gelled. I hope that someday these questions will be experimentally tested in a lab. In the meantime, I am happy to speculate and take my clues from traditional wisdom.
Some broth makers are not comfortable with letting the pot sit out at room temperature, and therefore put it in the fridge for the passive extraction. Others go through several more cycles of cooking and resting that can last for three days; and still others just stop completely at this point. Frankly, I would err on the side of caution with a bird that I did not know with certainty to be raised with the highest standards and butchered with utmost care.
Whenever you decide to stop cooking, strain out the solids, cool, and refrigerate the broth. I usually put mine into half-gallon canning jars. After a day in the fridge I have a solid gel and a layer of fat on the top. The fat seals the broth and protects it from spoilage, so it is always ready in the fridge. We usually consume broth within the week, but I have kept it this way for six weeks. If you like, you can always freeze it.
I noticed when I started using my passive method that the fat smelled and tested fresher. When I cooked it for twenty-four hours I used to throw the fat out after I “unsealed” the broth—it did not pass the smell test. Now I’m quite comfortable using it as a cooking fat when I have run out of my precious duck and goose fats.
If you are not getting a firm gel, consider the age of the birds you’re using—experiment with shorter cooking times for younger birds and longer times for older ones. The breed of the bird and feeding may also come into play here. There are no hard-and-fast rules for the exact amount of time to cook the perfect broth.
You may have noticed that there is nothing but chicken in this broth. Keeping the initial broth simple gives me total flexibility later. You could, however, add salt and some aromatic vegetables for flavor—carrot, onion, parsley, celery—and some seaweed for more minerals.
Use of the reserved meat depends on how much flavor has been removed. Add it to soup along with rice, pasta, or potatoes and/or carrots plus some green vegetables for a one-dish meal. Make potted chicken by putting it in the food processor along with some seasonings and one-half to three-quarters of its weight in rendered poultry fat or softened butter. This will keep in the fridge for two weeks in a glass jar topped with a good layer of fat. If most of the flavor has been extracted, you could feed it to the dog or back to the chickens.
We often start a meal with a cup of broth. Many times I just heat it up and stir in some flavorful miso, such as the red pepper and garlic miso from South River Miso Company. Otherwise I add salt and drink as is, or simmer with any of the following: a pressed or minced garlic clove and chopped parsley, trimmed shiitake mushroom stems that I have frozen, shredded spinach, or coconut cream concentrate and fresh ginger. The possibilities are endless.
[Note from Harvey: As for the spent residues once you’ve strained off the stock? Feed them to the flock: Ain’t nothin’ they like better than—chicken!]
Ellen Making Broth