How to Make Traditional Bone Broth – or a Weekend of Yummy Aromas

Traditional Bone Broth

Ingredients:

• Two large organic chickens or an organic Turkey
• Water
• Sea salt
• Apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup of water
• 1 cup red wine
• Vegetable leftovers like onion, squash skins, celery leaves, etc.
• Other ingredients will be needed later

Method: On Friday Evening (Optional):

Roast 2 Chickens or a turkey at 325 degrees F. This is to ensure the least damage to the fats in our food and also to ensure that some of the proteins can break down into gelatin. At this temperature, chickens take about 40 minutes per lb, depending on your oven. Cooking the meat a little longer makes it easier to take it off of the bone. I recommend roasting everything in a large enough pan to place the chickens on a slightly raised grate. This way, once the fat starts to drip onto then you can add some water and wine to improve the overall flavor and protect the fats from being overheated.

Once the birds are roasted, cool and remove the flesh from the bones. Enjoy the feast and refrigerate what is left

Place the bones, skin, and cartilage into a tall stockpot. Be sure to clean any meat from the bones. Otherwise, your stock will be bitter. Just cover the carcass with cold water. Add 2-3 Tablespoons apple cider per chicken to let the acids break down the membrane surrounding the bones for about an hour. If you like strong flavors or are going for an Asian style bone broth you can also use rice vinegar or red wine vinegar.

Next, add more water, about 1/2 the beginning volume and heat to a rolling boil for one hour, covered. Then lower the temperature to a bubbling simmer, about medium-low on most stoves or, if you have a thermometer, about 215 F.

For the next two hours, skimming every 20 minutes to remove coagulating proteins and bad tasting impurities. These will look like white congealed foam and long black stringy material. Try not to remove any of the fat. This is one of the high arts of great cooking. If you did a good job cleaning the bones then this won’t be necessary. Turn down to a slow gentle rolling simmer, covered overnight (about 200 F).

Traditional Bone Broth – step two:

Saturday Morning:
Scoop out the bones and let cool. Remove all tissue and cartilage and place it in the broth. Break up the back, wings, and chest and return all of the bones to the pot. The bones should be covered completely by the broth, so add some water if needed. Add a good pinch of salt.

Continue cooking at a gentle simmer for about 12 hours (200 F). Check occasionally to see if you need to add some water. I usually add some wine to the pot for aroma and to help the bones soften.

Traditional Bone Broth – step three:

Saturday evening:
Again, scoop the bones out with a strainer and let cool. Once cool, take the back of a large knife and crack the larger bones in half (the ones containing bone marrow). Scrape the marrow out of the larger bones into the pot, return the bone pieces to the pot, cover and simmer overnight.

Traditional Bone Broth – step four:

Sunday Morning:
To make a delicious and healthy soup stock; add any leftover (or saved) vegetable leavings like onion and ginger skins, celery roots and leaves, squash skins and other vegetable leftovers. I recommend gathering and storing “compost” vegetables for a couple of days before beginning each bone broth.

Continue cooking at a gentle simmer (200 F) for another 6 hours, give or take.

Traditional Bone Broth – step four:

Sunday afternoon:
Strain off the solids (bones and boiled vegetable leftovers) and pour hot water over the solids, over the stock pot, to rescue any fats and nutrients. At this point, you have bone broth. You can store it after it has cooled or continue to make some very yummy soup. Your Broth will last about 5 days in your fridge or for 3 months in your freezer.

Enjoy!

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