Make your own chicken broth! Now!
Photo by winnond
Making my own chicken broth is another one of those “la-di-da if only I had the time” prospects (kind of like making my own cleaners). I always thought of it as something that took all day, was messy, and kind of pointless. After all, I would tell myself, I can get 4 cups of store brand chicken broth for about 2 bucks. What’s the difference, right?
After we made our roast chicken the other day, we hung on to the carcass. Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that stuff. At our trip to the store, we picked up carrots and celery, spending about a buck.
When we got home we got out the big blue stockpot (I suppose there’s an irony in calling it that, since this was the first time it would ever actually be used for that purpose). Into the pot went the chicken carcass, followed by a palmful of peppercorns, a quartered onion, 3 roughly chopped carrots and 3 celery stalks broken into quarters. We ran cold water into the pot until the whole thing was covered and then threw in a little bit of kosher salt.
We got the pot boiling and then brought it back to a simmer. Soon after, the whole apartment filled with a fantastic smell. Remember the herbs that Gav rubbed on the chicken when we roasted it? There were still some sticking to the carcass and they floated into the broth, adding to the aroma. We checked on it periodically, skimming off the foam.
We let it cook for about four hours, then poured it through a strainer. Wow. The broth was golden and rich. We each took a taste and let me tell you this – I am never buying chicken broth from the store again. This broth was so flavorful, you could taste the hint of the herbs and seasoning. It was savory and delicious.
We packaged up the broth into two cup containers and stored it in the fridge to finish cooling before it went into the freezer. All in all, for the one dollar’s worth of vegetables, we got 10 cups of the best broth I’ve ever tasted. I’m looking forward to cooking with it!
Memories of the moment I discovered this...:D. Next time, crockpot it, baby. No monitoring. I think it still smells good, though;). After I picked out the bones, I left the little pieces of meat and the veggies in it and blended it all up--the kids don't know about the veggies, and it's extra good. Creamier than plain broth, but works great for all the usual purposes for chicken broth.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't crockpot it because I wasn't sure how long it was going to take and we were kind of short on time. We were visiting friends and I wanted to make sure everything got packed up on time! We might try that next time though. I love the blending idea, that sounds delicious!
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