Making bone broths

[Seaweed]

Since we talked about the need to get gelatin in the diet in the wrinkle thread, I thought I would start a thread on how to make bone broths. Mum used to make them which is how come I know but I meet & hear of quite a few people who don't have a clue how to make them. It would be good to see how everyone else makes them & what they use for bones.

The method I use is very simple. All you do is put some bones in a big pot of water with a dash of cider vingar & boil it gently with the lid on for a long time. :giggle:I realise that is an incredibly inexact method. A lot of the recipes you find for bone broths use veges & herbs but I generally make mine plain as it is easier. I've never tried making vege broth but that is a flavour thing as a pose to a source of gelatin.

Examples of bones....
I get lamb neck bones. These are labelled soup bones but, funnily enuf, are in the raw pet food section of my supermarket.
Organic chicken necks - relatively difficult to get.
Left over cooked chicken carcasses.
Left over cooked bones from roasts.
Chicken's feet.
I go to the fish shop & get the guts & bones sometimes.
Beef bones.
Pork bones - we have an antibiotic free free range pork producer on the farmer's market here that sells pork bones for boil up so I buy them.
Crab, crayfish, shrimp or prawn shells.

The size of the pot depends on how many bones I have. I tend to aim for a 12 hour simmer. In practise what I do is let the pot simmer while I am home & turn it off overnight or when I am out. Mum used to cook up left over chook carcasses in her pressure cooker. I have also seen people talking about making broths in a crock pot. I've not tried these 2 methods myself.

When I have the finished product, I put it into meal sized containers & freeze the excess. I make sure I label it. As much as I love fish broths, they don't go so well with pumpkin soup :giggle:If it is the dead of winter, I put the pot somewhere cold & use it as I go along as we often have soup every day so it does not last more than a few days.

[Wonder-Full]

I've been occasionally making broths over the past few years, but have really upped that in the past month.

DH got us some beef bones from his butcher friend which he cut through for us so the marrow can be released during cooking.

I also do plain ones.

I just put them in a large stock pot, cover with water, a little pepper and salt and cook on a simmer for 3 or so hours.

I then pour into approx. 500ml size freezer containers.

I also make stocks from leftover roast chicken carcass. Same deal - cover with water and simmer for 3 or so hours.

I've tried vege stocks but haven't really got a good flavour from any yet.

[Seaweed]

The reason I put vinegar in is the acidity is supposed to help draw the minerals out of the bones. You could use lemon juice if you had no vinegar.

I was thinking about putting herbs in with vege stocks. I have all sorts of herbs growing in the garden I could use. I was also thinking about experimenting with eggshells in there. I doubt there would be any gelatin but it would maybe up the mineral content.

[Wonder-Full]

OK, I'll give that a go next time. Thanks!

[deesalie]

I usually use beef shins because of the marrow. The bones are full when they go in & all holey when I pull them out

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

If it's gelatin you are wanting, then if using chicken, make sure you get all the cartilage type bits, and the skin of the whole chicken.

Add in, in terms of beef, shin meat.. and oxtail... huge amount of gelatine in both of them.

If you grow your own onions and garlic, save all the skins, and silver skins of the garlic. They contain huge amounts of quercetin and other flavinoids, toss them in with parsley stalks and anything herbal you want to use, if you want to use it.

Must away. Need to make a gelatin desert called Lemon pudding. As well as Pontac Sauce and Plum and Elderberry jam.

[Seaweed]

It's not just the gelatin in the broth btw which is why it is so good for us, it is the minerals as well.


Must away. Need to make a gelatin desert called Lemon pudding. As well as Pontac Sauce and Plum and Elderberry jam.

Are your elderberries ripe already?

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

True, but if you're main aim is gelatine, then you will use more bones that also have more gelatine, and get the best of both. My broth sets solid.

Yes, the elderberries have been ripe now for a week... and I'm about to bag some that are just filling out... so yours should be nearly there?

[Seaweed]

There's a tiny bit of colour in a few of them but most are still green. The bulk of the blackberries here aren't ripe yet either. We're finding the odd one which is almost ripe but that is it. I don't know what to do culinarywise with the elderberries this year as we don't do bread or much sugar.

[gilima]

we buy whole free range chickens, which I quarter for cooking and then save all the backs plus some necks and wings for broth. I also usually add marrow bones if i have some on hand and/or turkey necks and I throw in some onions turnips, kale cider vinegar sea salt and then parsley towards the end.....
i usually cook it for hours & hours, from morning till evening...I have some cooking today:D

[Seaweed]

I've got crab shells & prawn shells & smoked eel & fish bones on right now. I've got all the windows open :giggle:I love the finished product but the smell when it is cooking is not so great. It always amazes me it tastes so nice when it has finished.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

There's a tiny bit of colour in a few of them but most are still green. The bulk of the blackberries here aren't ripe yet either. We're finding the odd one which is almost ripe but that is it. I don't know what to do culinarywise with the elderberries this year as we don't do bread or much sugar. elderberry extract, or if you make apple pulp put elderberry juice with that. You could do a rob with honey, or just eat them as they are. I do.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

I've got crab shells & prawn shells & smoked eel & fish bones on right now. I've got all the windows open :giggle:I love the finished product but the smell when it is cooking is not so great. It always amazes me it tastes so nice when it has finished. it's the smoked eel that does it :drool:

[Seaweed]

Do you like smoked eel? I so love smoked seafood :drool: re: the elderberries, I thought you weren't supposed to eat them raw? I may try fermenting some with honey to make a sort of elderberry mead. I could stick some spices in too. For some reason the elderberry bush out the back got a bit prolific this year so I am going to have plenty to experiment with. If all those little bush birdies don't get there first that is.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

I eat elderberries raw. So do the hens. Neither the hens or I show signs of carking it yet :D

[Seaweed]

Us & the hens have a wildly different digestive system :giggle:Google reveals eating "large amounts" of raw elderberries can make you feel nauseous. They always disappoint me as I expect them to taste all sweet & flavoursome but they don't.

[betach]

I just bumped into this thread. Glad :)
So here's my Q: if my onions and garlics are not grown in my own garden and are not organic, should I not use their skins in my stock? ..what if I spray it first with a vinegar wash? or if its grown elsewhere but is organic (okya- honestly, that is not my situation yet- though i'd love it to be- just asked the Q for clarification purposes ;)

Thanks guys for helping with my education!

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

as I understand it, the spray integrates into the cell structure, so nothing you do will get rid of it.

again, try the farmer's market, and ask around. Or grow your own.

[Seaweed]

Onions are a pig to grow but garlic is easy. Those egyptian bunching onions are easy but I sort of abandoned onions due to lack of growing sucess so I am out of the habit of even cooking with them these days. I tend to make my broths plain as that way I can flavour them how I like. I think Jessica Prentice ( Full Moon Feast ) says the same thing. Gonna try making some venison broth soon - yum! Also gonna do some boiled up pork bones.

[betach]

Thanks for the clarification MT.
The ground is frozen over here.. There are places to buy organic around here.. just have to figure out how to budget it in! :)

[TanyaL]

I just bumped into this thread. Glad :)
So here's my Q: if my onions and garlics are not grown in my own garden and are not organic, should I not use their skins in my stock? ..what if I spray it first with a vinegar wash? or if its grown elsewhere but is organic (okya- honestly, that is not my situation yet- though i'd love it to be- just asked the Q for clarification purposes ;)

Thanks guys for helping with my education!

So funny, I'm just reading the thread for the first time and as I was going along, I quoted the same thing you asked about, intending to ask exactly the same question. I'm not at a point where I'm going to be growing a garden, so I'm just going to seek out some organic onions and garlic.

And as to the topic of the thread--I've gotten lazy and just started making stock in the slow cooker. I used to do it on the stovetop and skim off the icky scummy stuff but my stock-making tapered off to nothing, partly because my new stove doesn't have good flame control, so the slow cooker it is. It still tastes good, and I can make it overnight.

Back when I had a great oven, with a nice digital control, I'd make 2 big stockpots at once in the oven--start it on the stovetop, skim, then pop them both into the oven set at, I think 195*F, maybe 200*F, but it was a nice slow simmer and very little evaporated away so it was just so simple. New oven doesn't do that either.

[betach]

i've set my stove top really low and done it over night- of course making sure it has enough water.

[Seaweed]

i've set my stove top really low and done it over night- of course making sure it has enough water. I'd be too scared to do that. I have occasionally gone outside thinking it had enuf water, got distracted & come back to a pot of blackened smoking bones. I do have gas so it is not really very trick. The other thing it can do is if the pot overboils, it can put the flame out. So yeah, I have to be present in the house to make broth.

[betach]

I hear you seaweed..

I was wondering about this: when I bake chicken I notice that the 'broth'/ juices that come out of the chicken gel when cold. Does this indicate a 'good' broth? ..even though this is brought about by baking a chicken in the regular roasting method rather than by a low simmer? (We use this as our gravy without any additions of flour or anything else.. it was the biggest treat growing up to have that in our rice.. and now my kids love it too.)