Bone Broths & Enriched Broths
Depending on your allergies and intolerances, finding safe broth at the store might be a pain. Maybe you just think broth prices are too high. Perhaps you are of the most discerning and refined tastes, and your preferred brand of broth is not available where you normally shop. Luckily, making broth at home is easier than you think. All it takes is bones, meat trimmings, vegetables, water, and some seasonings. Oh, and patience too, because this will require a slow cook or a pressure cook. The results are guaranteed to blow store bought broth out of the water. The enhanced flavor will also carry through to any dish you cook using this broth. Soon you will think of store bought broth as bland dirt colored carton water.
Methods
The process for making any type of broth is more or less the same. So in this section we will discuss the general two step broth making process. The first cook takes bones and water and turns it into bone broth, while the second cook takes bone broth, vegetables, seasonings, and meat trimmings and becomes Enriched broth.
Water –(add bones)→ Bone Broth –(add veggies, seasoning, meat)→ Enriched Broth
Where do I get bones? I save them from my meat. You can also buy bones at your local butcher shop or at the meat counter at your grocery store. I buy only bone-in meat, cut the bones out myself, and save them in a large container in my freezer until the container is full. All fat trim and little meat scraps go in the container as well. If I cook meat bone-in, I save those cooked bones too. When there is enough material in the container, I pressure cook the recipe below. In this example we will use chicken. There will be no measurements given, as this method is fully adaptable to you and your equipment, in other words, the quantities will vary depending on the capacity of your slow cooker. You can use bone broth as a stand alone if you want. On its own it is already much more substantial than commercial broth.
Working Around Your Allergies:
There are basically no allergy concerns with this recipe. The only modifications I expect here would simply be changing what herbs and vegetables you use to flavor your enriched broth. Make each recipe your own!
Step 1: Bone Broth
Ingredients:
Chicken Bones, Skins, Meat/Fat Trimmings
Water
1 – 2 TBSP Vinegar or Apple Cider Vinegar
Instructions:
Place the bones, skins, and trimmings in your pressure cooker or slow cooker. Fill the pot with water until the bones are just submerged. Add a splash of vinegar or apple cider vinegar. Pressure cook on high for 4 hours, or slow cook for 8 – 24 hours. If you want to make enriched broth, continue on to step 2 below. If you want to stop at bone broth without enriching it, allow it to cool, then strain and transfer to a bowl. Refrigerate for 12-24 hours. A thin layer of congealed fat will form on top, which can be scraped off and reserved. Transfer broth to jars, keep refrigerated until ready to use or freeze for future use.
Step 2: Enriched Broth
Ingredients:
Whole Chicken
Bone Broth
2 Carrots
1 Celery stalk
Peppercorn to taste
Salt to taste
Thyme to taste
Rosemary to taste
Lemon wedge to taste
Instructions:
Place chicken in a slow cooker. Pour bone broth into the slow cooker, so the chicken is just covered. Wash your carrot and celery thoroughly, then place 2 whole carrots and whole celery stalk in the broth (you may need to snap them up, they should be submerged). Toss in the remaining seasonings and ingredients, slow cook for 8 hours. allow it to cool, then strain and transfer to a bowl. Refrigerate for 12-24 hours. A thin layer of congealed fat will form on top, which you can scrape off if desired. Transfer to jars, keep refrigerated until ready to use or freeze for future use. .
Tips
- The vinegar is crucial! The acid will break down the bones and other tissues, releasing the nutrition inside.
- When enriching, you can add virtually any vegetables, herbs, and spices. If you can eat it, it can go in your broth, but the flavor of that vegetable will be present in the final product. The stronger the vegetable flavors the less versatile your broth could be.
- If you stopped at step 1 and have jars of refrigerated bone broth you can enrich it later.
- When enriching, do not pressure cook or over cook your vegetables. They will turn to mush, and will drastically affect the flavor and texture of your broth.
- When cool, your bone broth may become solid like gelatin. This is normal and awesome, because that is a particularly rich batch of broth. This is caused by the collagen that is cooked out of the bones. It will return to liquid when heated again. Cook with it, eat it, drink it, love it.
- If the fat is not congealed, let it chill longer. Solid fat is much easier to remove than liquid. A little bit of fat is good, a lot of fat can be bad. Skimmed fats can be saved in a jar, rendered and used for cooking later.
- If you pressure can, this recipe can be pressure canned for shelf-stable broth, following safe canning practices. For more information on canning please reference a trusted canning source such as the Ball Blue Book of Canning.
- Both step one and step 2 can be done on the stovetop in a large stockpot.