Bone Broth

I tried the beef broth recipe in my Christmas gift, Nourishing Broth, by Sally Fallon.  I ended up with 2.5 quarts using 4 pounds of leg bones and one leg knuckle, cut in 1" slices.  I bought a meat cleaver for chicken carcasses (next experiment) and a Mason 3.5 quart glass dispenser to help with decanting.  Total time about 20 hours for me. Before adding the garnish and veggies.
Glass dispenser and cleaver:
After decanting.  Total fat was <10 oz olive jar:
Recipe:

Yay, congrats on your bone broth, Sanderson!  I try to save all my leftover bones and make broth about once every two months.  It doesn't taste that great by itself (in my opinion, anyway), but added to other recipes!  It just makes other recipes shine.  It gives soups and sauces such a rich depth.  And it's very good for you.  I try to drink it when I'm sick, which thankfully isn't that often since I started eating a traditional whole foods diet.

Hey, well done, Sanderson! I need to get me a cleaver like that. How do you like yours?

Littlesapphire, I have just finished making vegetable soup with turkey broth and you are right, it does add richness.  I had one portion for my lunch,  stored six portions for the freezer, and still have enough left for another couple of meals.

I always add a little bone broth to my dog Jazz's meal.  Bone broth is so good for us both. Keeps our coats shiny and our eyes bright.

I also use bone broth in gravies etc.

Molly, I like the cleaver. It was free from Savemart grocery store with our bonus points. Bed, Bath and Beyond had a 6" one for $50. I just chopped a ton of wilted chard, lake, carrots etc. for adding to a secondary compost pile

KJ, So that's your secret!

LS, I bagged our T-bones from NY Eve dinner!

Are you cutting the bones up yourself, Sanderson? With a cleaver? I thought you need a saw for bones....you do in my OR!

Scorpio Rising wrote:Are you cutting the bones up yourself, Sanderson?  With a cleaver?  I thought you need a saw for bones....you do in my OR!

No! The butcher band sawed the bones for me. It's a hoity toity market. The cleaver is for the whole chicken, which is now leaching in the pot, waiting to start the simmering!.

Oh, good! The visual of you with a cleaver hacking into beef bones was a little disturbing, at the least!

Lol, you'd have to be pretty strong to cut the bones with a clever! 

I've never actually tried cutting up a whole chicken before.  Is it difficult?

Define difficult. Bone scissors might have been more graceful, but it did the job. A cleaver would have made spatchcocking the turkey back bone easier, I can now say.

Sanderson, I LOVE that jar with the spigot! Where did you get that?

And congratulations on making bone broth...

Bed Bath and Beyond - $15.

Hmmmm... Okay, thanks.

It was in the Beyond section. (kitchen)

littlesapphire wrote:Lol, you'd have to be pretty strong to cut the bones with a clever! 

I've never actually tried cutting up a whole chicken before.  Is it difficult?

 Unfortunately most of the stock recipes don't actually say use uncooked bones or  fresh stripped carcass which is a pity as these make the best stocks.

To  sort a raw chicken   , use a sharp boning knife , take off the legs at the  top leg joint  right against the main frame /carcass . Then take off the wings right against the carcass , this leaves you a lump of chicken to take off the breasts.


 Stand the body on its butt end with the breast bone away from you ....If your right handed .
Now slice off as big a breast & side section as you can get from the right side starting  by the breast bone and working out to the back , using the tip of the boning knife to  make small stripping cuts to get as near to the bone as you can .Now try the same with the left side , you might have to lay the bird on its back  for this other side , have the butt end away from you .

 Pulling on the breast slice as you cut it free  till the rest of the bird  is nearly off the cutting board allows the weight of the carcass to help you , this also applies to holding & cutting off the legs & wings .

If  you get six or seven raw chickens at a time ,  you build a decent amount of usable freezable uncooked meat off the carcasses  & enough frames in one session  to make a decent volume of delicious stock .

 To use the  cut  carcasses ,  break them in half across their  backs using your hands, just a bit back from the rib cage . Using a knife to ease the halves apart on the spine , You shouldn't have to work hard nor think your going to have to have a lumberjacks skills .

 Put the cut up frames on top of the stock veg  so they are held underwater then bring to the boil and simmer for the suggested time.

Or
 Better still use the pressure canner , it is fantastic for stock making under pressure @ 15 PSI .

  Most bones are so soft after pressure cooking this way that you can break them up in your fingers . Save for the bigger heavier beef leg bones .  These  take a bit more effort but not so much that it takes our dog more than 40 seconds to demolish & make one disappear . Bits of usable meat are easily taken of the cooked bones or as usual most of it is already off the bones and in the pan with the veg .
Let it cool a bit and sieve off the liquid then sort the meat fromthe veg and fallen bone& can be frozen till needed in suitable sized packs  .
We nearly always use this frozen meat  as our chicken curry meal meat or meat for soup making , if we don't freeze all of it we use the unfrozen stuff in chicken and salad sandwiches .

 Some recipes suggest oven roasting the bones and veg first , this alters the final taste and colour of the stock .

sanderson wrote:Define difficult.  Bone scissors might have been more graceful, but it did the job.  A cleaver would have made spatchcocking the turkey back bone easier, I can now say.

I can't cut chicken bones even with large kitchen scissors.  Not with arthritic hands. So I put the chicken bones on the cutting board and smash it with the meat tenderizing mallet. Use the crockpot method and save about 3-4 carcasses, slow simmer for about 20 hours with veggies and strain.  So convenient to throw it all in the crockpot and forgettaboutit till the next day.

plantoid wrote:

littlesapphire wrote:Lol, you'd have to be pretty strong to cut the bones with a clever! 

I've never actually tried cutting up a whole chicken before.  Is it difficult?

 Unfortunately most of the stock recipes don't actually say use uncooked bones or  fresh stripped carcass which is a pity as these make the best stocks.

 Some recipes suggest oven roasting the bones and veg first , this alters the final taste and colour of the stock .

I followed the recipe and brushed the raw marrow bones with tomato paste and then roasted. Yum.
Here is a (gluten-free) soup I made tonight from the chicken bone broth. Broth, chicken, rice noodles, red bell pepper, carrots, salt and pepper, and from the garden: garlic powder, cabbage leaves and New Zealand spinach.

Ooh, that looks really yummy, Sanderson!  I have to thank you for your post.  It inspired me to pull out the big bag of knuckle and marrow bones from the 1/4 cow we bought, and they're simmering now (and smelling wonderful).  I plan on canning the broth when it's done tomorrow

Plantoid, thanks for the instructions on how to cut up a chicken.  It's so much cheaper to buy a whole chicken, but I get tired of roasted chicken all the time.

Tried my first batch of broth and It came out great after 20+ hours in a crock pot. I had to move out to the garage to finish the last 16 hours of cooking- my wife said it was smelling up HER house. I am amazed at how much of the actual minerals are leached out in the cooking process- nicest way to get mineral supplements.

Yardslave wrote:Tried my first batch of broth and It came out great after 20+ hours in a crock pot. I had to move out to the garage to finish the last 16 hours of cooking- my wife said it was smelling up HER house. I am amazed at how much of the actual minerals are leached out in the cooking process- nicest way to get mineral supplements.

 

That's where  pressure cooking the frames /bones in the canner at 15 psi comes in very handy.
 Simply  cover , heat & once it hisses give it  30 min after lowering the heat for a gentle chuckle of the weight once every 20 or so seconds for a one second burp and it's done .

Turn the heat off & leave the canner closed up with the weight still in place on hob to act as a radiator of heat for a few hours .  After all ... you have paid for that heat so why waste it ?

By morning the sterile cool contents can be sorted at your leisure up to several hours after you've  open the canner up .

There is hardly any of the crock pot smells or higher moisture  noticeable in the kitchen . Any aroma or moisture  goes out the above the hob extractor fan as soon as it escapes the pressure canner. .

plantoid wrote:

Yardslave wrote:Tried my first batch of broth and It came out great after 20+ hours in a crock pot. I had to move out to the garage to finish the last 16 hours of cooking- my wife said it was smelling up HER house. I am amazed at how much of the actual minerals are leached out in the cooking process- nicest way to get mineral supplements.

 

That's where  pressure cooking the frames /bones in the canner at 15 psi comes in very handy.
 Simply  cover , heat & once it hisses give it  30 min after lowering the heat for a gentle chuckle of the weight once every 20 or so seconds for a one second burp and it's done .

Turn the heat off & leave the canner closed up with the weight still in place on hob to act as a radiator of heat for a few hours .  After all ... you have paid for that heat so why waste it ?

By morning the sterile cool contents can be sorted at your leisure up to several hours after you've  open the canner up .

There is hardly any of the crock pot smells or higher moisture  noticeable in the kitchen . Any aroma or moisture  goes out the above the hob extractor fan as soon as it escapes the pressure canner. .

Plantoid, what is a job? Is it a stove?

Plantoid, I've tried broth in a pressure cooker before.  It cooked so fast!  Unfortunately, I decided later that it was probably not healthy to cook my broth in an aluminum cooker (which mine is), so I'm going to wait until I have a stainless steel one to do that again.  Until then, it's 12 hours in the stock pot.

littlesapphire wrote:.....  Unfortunately, I decided later that it was probably not healthy to cook my broth in an aluminum cooker (which mine is), so I'm going to wait until I have a stainless steel one to do that again.  Until then, it's 12 hours in the stock pot.

Read this article I read by the Alzheimer's Association. If your concerned about using a safe type of cookware, Scroll down to "Myth 4" and see what they have to say in response to fears of using aluminum cookware.

littlesapphire wrote:Plantoid, I've tried broth in a pressure cooker before.  It cooked so fast!  Unfortunately, I decided later that it was probably not healthy to cook my broth in an aluminum cooker (which mine is), so I'm going to wait until I have a stainless steel one to do that again.  Until then, it's 12 hours in the stock pot.

 
 The aluminium thing is an expensive  fallacy , plenty of squawks still exist on the internet about it .  Unless you have a specific allergy to aluminium ( very few folk d do apparently  )  there are no health risks .

For years  folk were getting swivel eyed and walking is jerky movements when ever aluminum pans were mentioned. This led to a massive exodus in the kitchen of aluminium , to be replaced by stainless steel , cast iron enamelled cast iron , glass and pot . Now we have silicone rubber & plastic trays & bags that can be used as cooking ware as well  . Somewhere in our home I think we still have a metal bottomed silicone rubber camping kettle  & two small flat pack camping pans made in the same manner

Obviously you don't use hard metal spoon and scrape the softer aluminium metal with them .

 Currently as far as I know  for I spent ages on this a few years ago because we have an All American Pressure Canner that's made out of thick aluminium .  There is no reason whatsoever not  to use  un pitted well maintained aluminium pans .

 The only thing I do know for sure is that you should NOT leave food in them  for days at a time especially if it is acidic as this causes chemical reaction that are not to healthy but that can be said of all the cast iron & stainless steel pans as well .... You need to decant it into glass or plastic or  similar and put it in the fridge.

Scorpio , I have a wicked sense of humour ..

So in reply to you asking ....
" Plantoid, what is a job? Is it a stove?.

"My reply..... tongue in cheek , ...... " No it's a spellign mistook on your part " .


Seriously :-
 These days the hob is the hot part where you put your pans on the top  a gas or other fueled stove  or an electric ring or the induction heat area

 Originally I think the hob is the old witches cauldron type scenario  where the cauldren is suspended over an open wood  fire  on the hob .

 I sure  the hob is those three six foot or so long iron rods set in a triangular pyramid that the cooking pot hangs from