How to cook chicken broth?

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Many soup recipes begin with the words: "Make chicken broth …". And then follows a description of the process of frying, laying vegetables, etc. Yes, what is there - soups! Sometimes recipes for second courses (for example, risotto or stew) include a phrase like “pour a ladle of broth into the contents of the pan.” One gets the impression that all people, young and old, know how to cook this dish. Of course, the modern food industry helpfully slips us such a product as bouillon cubes. One has only to crumble one in half a liter of boiling water - and you're done. But the quality of this broth leaves much to be desired. So let's take the chicken and start cooking the dish ourselves. Think it's that easy? If you fill the carcass with water and put it to boil, then you are unlikely to get a delicious, transparent, amber-colored soup.

Something about broths

This dish is not some kind of Russian or even Slavic know-how. In the culinary traditions of many nationsI have my own chicken broth recipe. Among the Slavic peoples, it is customary to cook it fatty, rich, with a minimum of ingredients, but with homemade noodles (or, less often, with rice). And in France, this is a puree soup, where chicken, mushrooms, and potatoes are sure to be present. In Greece, rice, lemon juice, and eggs are added to the broth. In Italy, they cook a delicious soup called stracciatella. It's still the same boiling chicken broth, but an egg is driven into it. From high temperature, the protein folds and is distributed throughout the soup in flakes. And the Italians season stracciatella with grated cheese, which makes the broth no longer transparent, but it acquires an amazing taste. Be that as it may, but traditional medicine of all countries ascribes medicinal properties to this particular dish. Previously, as soon as someone fell ill with some kind of illness (from a cold to stomach cramps), relatives immediately began to cook chicken broth for him. And what do you think? It helped half the time!

Ingredients for the dish

First, let's look at how to cook chicken broth according to the Slavic recipe. It's not just a standalone dish. The broth can serve as the basis for other soups and even for the second one. But do not stock up on this blank for the future. The main difference between the Slavic broth and analogues in other countries is its transparency. Also in this dish there is a minimum of seasonings. Chefs believe that spices will only kill the delicate aroma and taste of chicken. For the same purpose, not a tender fillet or chicken breast is placed in the broth, but a whole carcass or (for a smaller amount of soup) meat on the bone. Where without vegetables? But in a bowl of broth should not float eithercarrots or onions. Vegetables are caught with a slotted spoon, just like meat.

It is better to take homemade chicken for the broth. Even if the bird is not young, it does not contain as many antibiotics and chemicals as a broiler chicken. For a two-liter pot of broth, it will be enough to take a leg (about 300 grams). What other ingredients are needed? Their minimum (this is the difference between the broth and chicken soup): onion, carrot, celery and parsley roots, two bay leaves and a few peppercorns, s alt. The noodles are prepared separately. We give her recipe below. The finished dish is sprinkled with chopped fresh dill or parsley.

How to cook chicken broth

Some thrifty housewives, in order to make the most of the product, first work with the bird, then take it out and cook the second course. But if you want to get tasty meat as a result, it should be thrown into boiling water, and if it is a good rich broth, then the carcass should be poured with cold water. Therefore, a frugal cook should do this. Cut fat and fillet from chicken to prepare main dishes. Pour the bones with the remnants of meat with cold water and put on a strong fire. When it boils, drain the liquid. Rinse the chicken, pour two liters of cold water again and put on a small fire. The above technique is called blanching. It eliminates the need to frequently remove the foam. But still, you will have to do this in order to achieve an amber transparency of the soup.

Bookmark vegetables and spices

As soon as the chicken broth stopsgive abundant foam, which must be removed, you need to introduce other ingredients. Unlike soups, we do not make fried onions and carrots. And we don’t even chop vegetables finely. Thoroughly wash the onion in the husk. We clean the rest of the roots. If they are large, cut into several pieces. Dip in the broth simmering over low heat. Then we s alt the dish and lay the bouquet garni. What it is? We take a piece of gauze, put bay leaves, peppercorns and other seasonings on it. But without fanaticism! In the broth, you can use one clove, thyme or savory. We roll the gauze with a bag, which we tie with a long thread. Dip the bouquet garni into the broth. We tie the end of the thread around the handle of the pan so that you can easily fish out the bag from the soup. Do not stir often in a saucepan. All that is required of the cook is to remove the foam from the surface of the broth.

Helpful tips

Many novice cooks wonder how much to cook chicken for broth. If you make the fire minimal, then it will take from an hour to an hour and a half (depending on the volume of the pan). Another frequently asked question: when to s alt the broth and add spices? This should be done along with the laying of vegetables. Then the aroma will be extracted to the maximum. At the end of cooking, the dish can only be added with s alt.

What should we do if we didn't watch and the foam sank to the bottom? Put two ice cubes in the pan and it will pop up again. What to do if we overs alted the soup? We put in the broth a whole peeled potato or wrapped in cheeseclotha handful of rice cereal. These ingredients will absorb excess s alt. If you want to achieve maximum transparency of the broth, then at the end strain it through cheesecloth folded in several layers. If the liquid is still cloudy, put the pot on the fire, and when the soup boils, add the raw protein whipped with a little water.

If you want to get the most dietary dish, put the finished soup in the cold. After some time, a crust of frozen fat forms on its surface. It can be easily removed. The calorie content of the dish after this reception will greatly decrease.

Cooking noodles

Serving chicken broth with factory-made vermicelli is bad manners. Let's learn how to cook real homemade noodles. It differs from pasta in that it does not boil in soup and does not look like nasty algae. Cooking noodles is very easy. Separate the yolks from two eggs. Proteins will be used to prepare other dishes (or to clarify the broth). S alt the yolks a little and begin to gradually mix with flour. Knead until you get a fairly stiff dough. We roll it into a thin layer and be sure to leave it for half an hour so that it dries. Then we roll the dough into a roll and cut the "sausage" not too thin. Such noodles can be prepared for the future. It should be dried, folded into a plastic bag and stored in the refrigerator. How long to cook homemade noodles? It is thrown into a boiling broth. Then they let it cook for about ten minutes.

Vermicelli broth

Sometimesthat housewives simply do not have time to cook noodles. How to be in that case? You can use thin vermicelli. But if you want crystal-clear chicken broth, the pasta should first be rinsed in cold water to remove any coating that coats it. There is another way - boil them in a separate pan. Factory-made vermicelli is being prepared, especially thin, much smaller than homemade noodles made from stiff dough. And a very simple way: put Deshirak pasta (or a similar product from another trading company) in plates and pour hot broth over it. After three minutes, the dish is ready. You should not choose spaghetti and large pasta "with a hole" for the broth. But the tagliatelle pasta variety, so similar to noodles, is quite suitable.

French soup

Chicken broth originated in the birthplace of Balzac and Joan of Arc. Then the French tried this beef and pork broth. And then they began to experiment with the actual broths. This is how the famous French clear chicken soup was born. Cooking it is a little more difficult than Slavic broth. But the result justifies the effort. We cut the chicken into pieces. You can take individual parts of the carcass - wings, drumsticks or legs. We put the meat (about two and a half kilograms) on a baking sheet greased with cooking oil or vegetable oil. Vegetables - onion, carrot, celery stalk, 200 g of champignons - clean, cut into large pieces. Put together with chicken. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Bake meat with vegetables for about forty minutes. We shiftthe contents of the pan into a saucepan. Do not forget about the fat remaining at the bottom. It also needs to be moved to the pan.

Turn broth into soup

The above method of preparing chicken meat completely eliminates the need to remove the foam. The blood has already baked, and there will be no “noise” on the surface of the soup. Pour four liters of water. We put the pot on the fire. While the liquid is boiling, prepare the bouquet garni. In this recipe, you can do without gauze. Tie together with a long thread several stalks of parsley, thyme, savory, two bay leaves. S alt the chicken broth and dip the bouquet of garni into it. Cover the pot tightly. Let's keep the fire to a minimum. The liquid should gurgle evenly, as if purring, but in no case should it boil violently. So the soup should be cooked for four whole hours. We filter the contents through a colander lined with gauze folded in several layers. We use chicken for other dishes. Discard the bouquet garni and vegetables (except mushrooms). We return the mushrooms to the soup. We put the cooled pan in the refrigerator for several hours. We remove excess fat. The soup is ready.

Strachatella

First, let's cook a clear chicken broth with chicken according to a Slavic or French recipe. To turn it into a delicious Italian stracciatella soup, you only need to apply the following trick at the very end. Based on two liters of broth, you need to take four eggs and mix them in a separate bowl with 20 grams of grated Parmesan cheese, a pinch of nutmeg, ground pepper, fresh parsley and basil. Whip this mixture up a bit. Bring the broth to a boil. Stir the liquid in such a way that a funnel forms in the middle. We will pour the contents of the bowl into it with a thin stream. In order for the eggs to "grab", a minute is enough. Turn off the heat under the pan and cut the “flakes” into smaller pieces.

Don't be afraid to experiment

The above was a basic recipe for how to cook chicken broth. But this is not a dogma at all. The recipe can be modified. For example, some people like carrots in broth or vegetable fried. You can cook this dish not with pasta, but with rice. With a basic recipe and your imagination, you can make tons of delicious first courses.