This post was written by guest blogger, Sarah Walker Cleaveland.
It was two days ago now that Lucy entered our lives. Sarah, after much deliberation, brought her home from the Farmer’s Market. We’ve never had anything like Lucy in our house before, but we had thought about it, and talked about it, and felt up for the challenge.
Lucy, you should know, was once a chicken – a lovely chicken from what we could tell. And, while she was dead before we got her home, she was intact and whole. We did our best to honor Lucy’s memory by grilling her with lemon and garlic tucked inside her and under her skin. And, when she was fully browned and juicy, we relished her for dinner.
Not being ones to waste, we pulled off the rest of her meat and saved her bones thinking perhaps we would brave the world of broth-making.
It wasn’t as easy as you might have thought, for two novice chefs. First of all, we have no stockpot. Oddly enough, no one bought one for us for our wedding, so we don’t own one (we’re cheap in the kitchen that way, some days). So, Sarah went out to Bed, Bath & Beyond and Target and debated the various possibilities and options (of which, apparently, there were many). She ended up going, thankfully, middle of the road with a cheaper Calphalon, non-stick 6-quart pot. It was a little smaller than we would have hoped (we were aiming for 8 quarts), but we made do.
When she came home, we dumped the bones in the pot, filled it with LOTS of water, an onion, some carrots, some salt and pepper. We let it boil for a few hours and then pulled the meat off the bones and left it to simmer overnight.
[As a side note, we had a small debate over what 'simmer' actually meant. Sarah felt as though 'low' was not simmer since nothing was moving in the pot. Adam thought 'medium' could not be simmer because that was actually boiling slowly. So, we looked it up in Betty Crocker who affirmed both views by defining simmer as just below the boiling point where bubbles will come up and break just below the surface. In the spirit of compromise, and after much experimentation, we set the burner at the setting just above low, but still two settings away from medium; put the lid on and left it to do its work while we got our beauty rest for the last day of classes.]
Throughout the night we had dreams and visions of chickens dancing over our heads and inviting us out to eight course meals and then offering themselves up as the main course. We woke up to the yummy smell of chicken, though perhaps not generally a smell we associated with morning and maybe, actually, not the most enticing smell first thing in the AM.
After getting ready for class, Sarah went down to get breakfast and stir the broth. To see our lovely broth and memorial to Lucy’s life and homage to conservation and using everything possible, click below.
Alright you cooks and chefs out there…what went wrong? Obviously, something had gone awry in the middle of the night. Thoughts? What does simmer mean for you?
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{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
Overnight seems a bit excessive.
It may seem that way, however, we followed the recipe…
this may seem rather obvious . . . but it looks like you’re missing some “broth-based” liquid. perhaps you drained it off. i’m just surprised you didn’t get awakened in the night to a fire.
I’ve never seen a broth recipe that simmered overnight… everything else you did sounds right, though putting the heat a tad lower probably would have been good too – you just don’t want it to sit there doing nothing, no bubbles breaking the surface ever. But I’ve never simmered a broth for more than about 3 or 4 hours (usually less), and I start with a bigger pan and more water…
It’s so sad when that much work goes to waste – that’s too bad!
Did the lid not fit tightly enough?
Josh, guess I’m not sure what you mean. You said “broth-based liquid”….that’s different than the water?
The lid was on tight enough…
The mystery continues…
Um, next time use a crockpot….
Well, good thing you bought the nonstick pot!
DON’T GIVE UP, good stock is so worth it! I make the best darned turkey barley soup the same way. My method: Bring it to a boil, and then [immediately] turn it to low overnight. I don’t remove the meat until the morning.
If you let it boil for a few hours, then you likely got all the flavor you possibly could out of it. Meaning: there was no reason to let it simmer overnight.
Perhaps it wasn’t the recipe. Maybe you bought a demon-possessed chicken. Free-range chickens full of Legion. You never know at a farmers’ market.
I’m with Brett.
You checked out Dooce today? She has some good thoughts on free-range chickens, with experts to back her up.
My recipe for chicken stock: I use a roasted chicken or turkey from which I just had a meal, and use the leftover carcass to make broth. Pull remaining meat from the carcass and reserve it for soup. Dump the bones & skin (and all the gooey stuff) into your new, quality Calphalon stockpot. Add water to cover, onions (cut in big chunks), celery (big chunks). Cover. Bring to a hard boil. Then reduce heat and let simmer (or low boil) for 45 minutes. It makes a nice, rich stock. Cool the stock, skim off the fat, and strain out the juice to make soup…it’s like liquid gold! If you want the full soup recipe, “e” me.
poor sweet lucy. she was such a good dancer.
cleave,
chicken stock doesn’t need any more than 3-4 hours usually. A couple tips –
-start with cold water and only the bones and bring it up to a boil slowly. Put it over medium heat and when it boils turn it down so bubbles are breaking the surface but it’s not a strong boil. This helps keep your stock clear and draws more flavor out of the bones as well as the gelatin property in bones that helps you make a good demi glace later (another treat further down the cooking road for you).
-after couple hours add onion, celery and carrot as well as a couple bay leaves, cracked pepper and a few sprigs of thyme if you’ve got it.
-If the water is all cooking off, add more, but try and keep it from doing that from the beginning by keeping your temperature a little lower.
good luck!
early a.m. until 3:00 should be long enough to get a good stock. i don’t think i would do the overnight thing unless i got up to add more water through the night.
if you try it again though i would put the stove on it’s lowest setting.
keep trying though – it’s so worth it!
Kinda disconcerting with the new pot and all…Hmmmmm. Something to work on over ‘Christmas Break’. I’ll try to guide you thru ‘my process’ or just share my recipe with you. Hmmmm
ps. I’m only a phone call away~
The best broth recipe that I’ve found was shared by a friend from her old Alice B. Toklas cookbook (unlike her brownie recipe, this does not include illegal substances). Over time, I’ve drifted from the original recipe. It makes great broth.
Lightly brown a whole chicken (or cut up parts iwth skin and bones included) in olive oil and throw into pot. Take two onions, lop off the top and cut halfway down in two cross cuts. Stick cloves (the spice) into each quarter and on the top. Add two stalks of celeara. Two whole carrots. Four or five cloves of garlic. Add salt & pepper. Add thyme and winter savory herbs. Add two cups of white wine and then water to fill slightly above the chicken.
Cook on low heat. Simmer. And this case, it does mean letting bubbles come up but not a full boil.
Cook this for about an hour to an hour and a half.
Remove the chicken (this is excellent for creating meat for homemade chicken pot pie or chicken salad). Remove the veggies and throw them away. Filter out all other floating things (like thyme). You now have a very rich broth. If you cool it in the fridge, you can then skim off the coagulated fat which forms along the top layer. Or you can buy a cup device at a kitchen store that separates the fat from the broth.
Simmer = “the temperature at which the Walker Cleavelands understand the value of a crock pot.” (-;
But here’s the good news: as someone who would consider himself an experienced cook, I can tell you that I have had more than my share of misread recipes and misunderstood directions. So, all I can say, is welcome to the (cooking) club!
I’m wondering: Do you normally name the animals you boil, bbq, and eat?
Great “young, married and in love” cooking story. I vividly remember one of our early attempts at cooking when we were newly married. Did you know that tacos can actually catch on fire within an oven? It’s true. Throwing flower at the flames solved the problem.
As for your chicken, I agree with the crock pot option. My guess, that poor chicken boiled all night long (a low boil, but a boil none the less) and all that broth evaporated into your cabinets. You could try stuffing your cabinets full of vegies and grilling them… they would probably taste like chicken.
Oh my.
You two should invest in a Crock Pot. I recommend one big enough to fit or nearly fit a whole chicken; it’s useful not only for church potlucks and such, but also for stockmaking (which is what I mostly use ours for). Don’t get anything fancier than the ones with the switch you can set at high, low, or off; I understand that the new programmable ones don’t actually work as well.
To make stock after roasting a chicken, just pick off as much meat from the bones as you want for leftovers, then put the whole carcass in the Crock Pot. Add some very coursely chopped carrots, celery (leaves and all — this is a great way to use bits of vegetable you don’t normally serve at the table), and a peeled onion (which you can just cut into quarters if you want. Put in about 1/4 tsp. of salt and 1/2 tsp. of pepper; a bit of sage, rosemary, and/or thyme and garlic are optional. Pour water on all of the above to cover it, then turn the Crock Pot to low. Allow it to burble away overnight, and then in the morning (or the afternoon, or the next evening — whenever you’ve next got time) put the mixture through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth. What you’ve got is stock!
If you let it burble long enough that not much liquid is left, you can just add some boiling water to the Crock Pot and let it burble a little longer (e.g., 30 minutes) before straining.
I particularly like pouring stock into ice cube trays that I use for nothing else and freezing it; that way I can store as much of it as I want and add one or more cubes of homemeade stock to recipes as needed. Alternatively, you can let the stock cool and then pour it into sandwich-sized Ziploc freezer bags for storage.
Roast chicken is a staple in our household because: a) it’s very easy; b) it’s cheap; and c) with the homemade stock, it makes great leftovers. It’s a darn near perfect Friday night dinner for two for those reasons, I think.
I also highly recommend that you two get a copy of The Joy of Cooking. It tells you how to do most basic kitchen tasks, and spells things out pretty well.
Poor Lucy. :)