Do you dream of making healthy nutrient dense chicken broth for your family that your children love? Can you envision your kiddos sitting around sipping it contentedly, hands cupped around the warm mug, breathing deep sighs of joy, as they thank you for taking the time to prepare such delicious ambrosia?!
When I learned the value of chicken broth this was my dream. I desperately wanted to not only make it but have my family embrace this healthy habit. Unfortunately at first my experience was very different!
It was fairly early in our health journey that I watched a documentary called “Food Matters”. Looking back I can see that this documentary was a catalyst that changed the trajectory of my thinking about health and how I fed my family. It truly opened my eyes to the truth that what we eat, really does matter. We are in fact, what we eat.
I started investigating more and learned of the myriad health benefits of the humble chicken bone broth. A staple that has been brewed in home kitchens since time immemorial, nourishing and growing strong bodies for centuries.
Bone Broth through the Ages
Broth has made a comeback in recent years as an important element of home cooking. But it was a mainstay of the home kitchen for ages. Most homemakers knew this basic culinary skill as it was passed down from generation to generation, family to family.
It was the nourishing hub around which many meals were built and families fed since pre-Bible times. A couldron or large pot would be hung over the fireplace and scraps of food, meat and bones would be added; it would simmer day in and day out, being topped up with water and available ingredients to form the basis of meals to feed the hardworking family.
At some point in the 1700’s we know from English food writers that people learned to dehydrate this amber liquid to increase it’s longevity and allow for travel.
How We Lost the Art of Making Chicken Bone Broth
With the advent of the industrial revolution, like so many other traditions, this dehydrated broth or bouillon was reinvented in an adulterated, commercialised, packaged form, to service an increasingly busy population who were taught they needed quick and easy meals. “No one has time to make broth from scratch in this new post modern world – just buy this cube, we’ve done all the hard work for you.” What we didn’t realise is that we were trading our health for convenience.
Enter the hippy movement and the fringe health nerds searching for magic healing foods. This was followed by the 90’s crunchy granola mum who got a little intense about health issues and all the do’s and don’ts. Fast forward 20+ years and now there are multiple generations of women looking for a better way to health and vitality for our families, than the take a pill mentality we have all been fed.
How Hard Can It Be?
Bone broth was only one element I discovered on this journey to better health but I just knew I wanted this for my family. And how hard could it be. Put some bones in a pot, add some veggies, simmer away and bam you’ve got yourself a cheap easy health tonic!
I researched recipes, gathered the ingredients and toiled away in my kitchen with ardent vigour and gusto. When all was ready I would carefully salt and taste the golden liquid, thinking to myself that I had done a pretty darn good job. Then trying to restrain my enthusiasm and act nonchalantly, I would pour cups of warm broth and invite my children to come to the table and try this “yummy new recipe”.
The results were more than a little disheartening. As anyone with children will attest, they can be brutally honest. No-one liked it. In fact, they really didn’t like it. One of my more sensitive little boys, came up to me timidly and said, “Mummy, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but that broth thing is really not my favourite!” Sigh. Dreams shattered. Oh well, I thought, I guess I’ll just keep making it and hide it in soups, stews and casseroles. That way they are still getting the goodness of the broth without the taste.
And for many years I did that. It was still good and I’m glad I didn’t give it up entirely. But what I discovered over the years as I continued to look at different recipes and try new things is that the main ingredient of importance in the broth is the bones. Especially bones with cartilage or what my mum and dad used to call the gristle.
The slow cooking of the bones leaches all the minerals out and gut healing gelatin from those joints and connective tissue, into the liquid. The vegetables, herbs and spices add flavour and a small measure of goodness but the real prize is in the bones.
The Trick to Yummy Chicken Bone Broth
Then my good friend Robyn shared with me the recipe she used for chicken broth. She said her children loved it and I was super curious as to how this could be!? The trick I found out, was to not put any celery or carrots or other veggies in at all. She just added an onion and a nob of ginger.
Fancy making broth with no celery! Was this even legal in the culinary world? Well, I found this made all the difference. Now I am not anti celery and carrots. I love celery and carrots. They are awesome in soup and cut into fingers on a plate with a dip. But in my experience, they just aren’t the best choice in chicken broth.
I tweaked the recipe a little and added a couple of things – but it was Robyn’s revelation to me that I didn’t have to add veggies that changed everything in my broth making world. Thank you Robyn!
It completely changed the flavor of the broth and suddenly my children were asking for it! It is so simple and easy and yet so full of goodness. I really hope it can bless your family like it has mine.
Yummy Chicken Broth Recipe
Ingredients
Chicken Carcases and/or saved chicken bones.
Chicken necks and feet (optional)
Filtered Water
A dash of organic apple cider vinegar
2 bay leaves
4-6 peppercorns
Nob of ginger
Nob of tumeric
Whole onion cut in half
Salt to taste
Method
Place bones (and necks and feet if using) into a large heavy based pot. Cover with filtered water. Add dash of apple cider vinegar, bay leaves, peppercorns, ginger, turmeric and whole onion. Bring to the boil, then reduce to simmer for 6 – 12 hours. Separate the liquid from the other ingredients by pouring through a fine sieve or colander into a bowl. Then decant into quart jars with lids to cool on the bench top, before storing in the refrigerator. At this point I will often put the bones and other ingredients back in the pot, cover again with filtered water and get a second broth out of it. Granted, it will be a weaker broth and less gelatinous than the first but there is still a lot of goodness to harvest from those bones with another 6-12 hour simmer. This second broth I will often make entirely into a pot of soup by straining it off at the end, then adding other ingredients. I have found the broth will last in the fridge in jars for a week or two… especially if there is a layer of fat at the top of the jar to seal it. You will see this layer solidify as it cools and separates. It will be a different color to the rest of the broth.
Note: You can simply warm this broth and pour in your favorite mug as a nourishing hot beverage. Or you can add to a limitless number of soups, casseroles and other meals to add both flavor and wonderful, gut healing, nutrient dense goodness for you and your family.
Watch me prepare this broth @ninelittleaussies:
Elevate this already nourishing broth with this quick easy recipe to create an immune boosting tonic when you aren’t feeling well @ninelittleaussies
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