A note before I begin – this post is a little barbaric. There’s talk of meat, bones, and the ripping apart of both. There’s also talk of a deep, golden, life-affirming bowl of broth with soft, pillowy, buttery dumplings. Unfortunately, the latter cannot exist in it’s ultimate experience, without the former.
So read on if you’re with me.
We start this story with carcasses. Carcasses in my freezer, to be exact, because my freezer is like the Elephant’s Graveyard from The Lion King. Open the doors and you will see bags and bags of chicken bones and body parts, each there to serve their post-humous purpose. That’s to create a broth.
I often disgust my partner, my poor partner, who on a regular basis, has to watch me strip and dismantle cooked and cold chicken carcasses with my bare hands, putting the slippery pieces of meat to one side (the second good thing to come from a roast chicken) all in the name of salvaging the spiky, spindly bones for broth (the first good thing that comes from a roast chicken).
Because roasting a chicken is only half of the job in my kitchen.
If someone (me) is cooking chicken in the house, there are multiple steps thereafter that are involved. Let’s take food the dogs. I buy packets of chicken thighs for the dogs, which I simply roast, and then strip the bones of their meat. The meat goes in a ziplock bag for the dogs to stir through their dry kibble – grateful for it they are, too – and then the bones get stashed in another ziplock bag which goes in the fridge.
This bag gets topped up with various other bones that I can salvage after barbarically going into my ripping mode (it’s therapeutic, okay!), until the bag is full. Once full, we start again, and I will continue to roast chicken, and shred carcasses, and fill ziplock bags with bones until I have about four or five bags. Then I am ready,
Oh, this broth. My, yours, and their kingdom for this both. The bones are pure gold, you guys, I won’t lie. Simmer them for long enough and they will transform tap water into a rich, healing elixir that promises much better days. Dramatic? Not even a little bit, because stock cubes could never. I mean, I don’t want to get into applying virtue to homemade broth or stock, I myself am a Better Than Bouillon girl most of the time, but if we’re talking flavour and JUST flavour, there truly is no competition.
It also allegedly has healing powers, which I will not go into, not only because I’m not a doctor, but also I don’t care. I don’t consume this broth to be healed of anything other than hunger and a craving. I make this sometimes just purely for broth and dumplings (and we will get to the recipe eventually, I promise) but I almost always make enough to keep in the fridge ready for soups, stews, risottos (anything that requires stock, really) and venture to freeze any excess broth in cup-sized portions (in silicone moulds) for when I need them at a later date, which I can thaw straight in a pain from frozen.
And if we’re speaking freezing, my biggest tip for anybody who roasts a lot of chicken, is buy a ribber ice cube mould. After roasting your chicken, tip any chicken fat into the ice cube trays and freeze them, popping them out once frozen and storing them in ziplock bags. Fry them straight from frozen when you want to filthily fry something in chicken fat. It will change your life, and you’re so welcome.
Anyway, the recipe. My recipe is a guideline not a gospel. It’s flexible, in the sense of you can use a few various vegetables you may have in your fridge, however note that the addition of ingredients will affect the flavour (and sometimes colour) of your broth.
Here is my loose blueprint and logic for additions:
ALWAYS
Onions/ leeks/shallots – always an allium. An onion AND a leek is my preference, but either would be fine to add what I call ‘bottom’ which is a base and roundness. If using a leek, you could use the greener bits at the top, but not too much as it will be bitter.I wouldn’t use spring onions necessarily, but you could. You can also leave the skins on any regular white onions on if you want, but it will make the brother darker. Don’t use pink or red onions. It will turn the stock a foul colour.
Carrots – natural sweetness and a warm, earthy flavour. Non negotiable for me. If it’s organic, don’t even bother peeling, just lob off the top.
Celery – adds a subtle, fresh, slightly peppery note. I include the soft, papery celery leaves too, if they’re knocking about.
Garlic – warmth, a complex depth. Not too much though, just pressed lightly with a knife to split them slightly. Skins left on, why not.
Herbs – yes. Parsley and thyme only though, please. Stems and leaves.
MAYBES
Parsnips – I will add them if I have them, but too many will make the broth too sweet. My partner loves them though so I throw more in when I know I’m being watched.
Fennel – again, I will add it if I have it, but until the local supermarket starts stocking it, it won’t be in my fridge on rotation. Use it sparingly, if using, though. Include the tube bits and fluffy fronds, if you can.
Courgette – sure. I don’t find it does anything though, but if I have one knocking that needs attention before it disintegrates, then in it goes.
Ginger – only and IF only I’m making a tiny batch for a noodle soup or a stew/soup which would otherwise use ginger. Cut into fat coins and dropped in. This would be the only example of where I would also toss in some spring onions.
NEVERS
Red cabbage / beetroot / red onion – they will do you dirty Bridget Jones-style and turn everything purple and hideous.
Broccoli / cauliflower – it’s a no from me, plus boiled cauliflower makes the house smell wretched.
Leafy greens like spinach and kale – too overpowering and just unnecessary
Potatoes – makes the broth too cloudy and starchy
Aubergine – why?
And also… SALT.
Controversially, I never salt my broth. Stay with me! Okay, so usually when I make huge batches of this chicken broth, I know I will make the broth within this recipe post, but I also have so much more than I need then and there, and end up stashing it away in the fridge. At this stage, I have no clue what I will need them for, the amount, or other things I will need to pair it with.
The hardest thing in the world to do is take away the saltiness of something (a potato in the liquid doesn’t work, stop trying this) so I would rather start off with a broth that is unsalted and then be able to salt each portion of it as I need it, rather than be stuck with a salted broth that I then don’t have saline control over. I also feel the same about butter, which we’ve discussed before, but let’s draw a line before we argue.
A note I want to make though, and this is addressing all my slow cooker heads… YOU ARE IN FOR A TREAT.
This recipe slow-cooked on low overnight will yield a broth so good that you will throw yourself out of bed and sprint to the kitchen just for a sniff. I made this overnight in the slow cooker once and when I woke up, both of my dogs were sat patiently below the countertop, sniffing the air, as if they had some kind of moral right to the broth. They’re not daft, so if you have a slow cooker, then please use it for this.
Unfortunately, my slow cooker is too small to contain my… ahem, enthusiasm for the amount of bones I collect, so I only get to use it when I have practised some self-restraint and make a broth per bag I collect, rather than making a massive panful of four or five bags.
The recipe below, however, has taken into account that not everybody – shock, horror – collects bones with the same excitement that I do, so I have measured out this recipe to accommodate the bones of one large chicken that has already been roasted, cooled, and stripped of its meat. Of course, scale upwards or down depending on your bones, but I will absolutely always encourage you to strip and store them so you can make a big, necessary batch.
And I’ve blabbered on so much about the broth that I forget there are actually gorgeous, plump little dumplings that can be used to bob in the broth. My theory of ‘what goes in it, must go on it’ remains strong here, as these dumplings are made from butter and a few spoonfuls of the broth, meaning that chicken soul is infused everything (and if you have chicken fat available to replace the butter instead, all the better for you).
So, if you’re ready to make a deeply satisfying broth that turns into a hearty, life-affirming pot of chicken and dumplings, start stripping your bones.
Makes roughly 1.5 – 2 litres broth and/or serves 2 people as a broth with dumplings
For the broth
1 large chicken carcass (approx 300g) – roasted, cold, and stripped of it’s meat
2 onion
2 leek
2 carrots
2 sticks celery
4 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
A handful of fresh parsley and thyme (leaves and stems)
For the dumplings
1 egg
40g unsalted butter
3 tablespoons chicken broth (from above)
150g self-raising flour
- Peel and quarter the onions, chop the leeks, carrots, and celery into little batons, and crush the garlic cloves under the weight of your knife. Throw them all into your biggest pot along with the chicken carcass, peppercorns, herbs, and enough water to cover everything properly, anything between 1.5 to 2 litres.
- Put the pot on a high heat and bring to a boil before dropping it to a gentle simmer. You can leave that there for 2 hours. Do anything else in your life that takes up the rest of this time, just maybe stir it now and then.
- When the time is up, drain the stock through a colander into a big jug, give the pan a bit of a rinse, and then pour the content of the jug back into the washed out pan. I don’t care about skimming or getting rid of any fat from the both. I want it so rich that it leaves a greasy film on my lips.
- That’s your broth done – you can either store in the fridge for 3 – 4 days or in the freezer for up to 6 months (see my intro for ideas on this) or you can continue as needed to eat this broth with dumplings.
- For the dumplings, crack the egg into a bowl and whisk it. Whisk it really good, so that it has big bubbles in it.
- Melt the butter in the microwave or on the stove top in a small pan, a few seconds will be fine, and then pour this into the eggs. Whisk again.
- Now add in the chicken soup and a little salt and pepper and whisk it all up again.
- Tip in the flour, and using a spoon, stir everything to create a paste. You want it to feel tough-ish, so you may need to add a little more flour if you feel it’s too sticky.
- Take tablespoons sized pinches of the dumpling mix with your fingers, and using your palms, roll them into small golf balls. Go smaller than you’d want the finished dumpling itself, because they will expand when cooked.
- Reheat the chicken soup gently on one hob, and on another hob, bring a pan of water to the boil and then drop in the dumplings. You could just drop them straight into the hot chicken broth, but I think it makes the broth too floury. The dumplings will take about 3 – 4 minutes to cook in the water, just gently coax them around in the water with a spoon, flipping them over from time to time.
- Ladle generous amounts of hot, golden chicken broth into deep bowls, and then add the dumplings. Eat the dumplings with a spoon and drink the broth by directly lifting the bowl up to your face, leaving that gorgeous, slippery coating of fat on your lips.
MIKEY AND THE KITCHEN. 