Many recipes for soups begin with the words: “Make chicken stock ...” And then follows a description of the process of frying, laying vegetables, etc. Yes, what is there - soups! Sometimes recipes of second courses (for example, risotto or stew) include a phrase such as "pour the soup ladle 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 palms us into a product such as broth cubes. One has only to crush one in half a liter of boiling water - and you're done. But the quality of this broth makes you wish for the best. So take a chicken and start cooking the dish yourself. Think it's that simple? If you fill the carcass with water and put it to cook, then you will hardly get a tasty, transparent, amber-colored soup.
Something about broths
This dish is not some kind of Russian and even Slavic know-how. In the culinary traditions of many nations there is a recipe for chicken broth. It is customary for Slavic peoples to cook it in bold, rich, with a minimum of ingredients, but with homemade noodles (or, less commonly, with rice). And in France it is puree soup, where chicken, mushrooms, and potatoes are always present. In Greece, rice, lemon juice and eggs are added to the broth. In Italy, a delicious soup called "stracellella" is prepared. This is the same boiling chicken stock, but an egg is driven into it. From high temperature, the protein coagulates and is distributed by flakes throughout the soup. And the Italians dress the strachatella with grated cheese, which makes the broth cease to be transparent, but it acquires an amazing taste. Be that as it may, but traditional medicine of all countries attributes healing properties to this particular dish. Previously, as soon as someone got sick with some ailment (from colds to stomach colic), his relatives immediately began to prepare chicken broth for him. And what do you think? In half the cases it helped!
Ingredients for the dish
First, consider how to cook chicken broth according to the Slavic recipe. This is not only an independent dish. The broth can serve as the basis for other soups and even for the second. 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 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 put in the broth, but a whole carcass or (for less soup) meat on the bone. Where without vegetables? But neither carrots nor onions should swim in a bowl of broth. Vegetables are caught by a slotted spoon, as well as 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. On a two-liter pot of broth it will be enough to take a leg (about 300 grams). What ingredients will you need more? Their minimum (this is the difference between broth and chicken soup): onion, carrots, celery and parsley roots, two bay leaves and a few peppercorns, salt. Separately cooked noodles. We will give her recipe below. The finished dish is sprinkled with chopped fresh herbs of dill or parsley.
How to Cook Chicken Broth
Some frugal housewives, in order to maximize the use of the product, first they work with the bird, then they take it out and prepare the second dishes. But if you want to get tasty meat as a result, you should throw it in boiling water, and if you have a good rich broth, then you should fill the carcass with cold water. Therefore, an economical cook must do so. Cut off fat and chicken fillet to prepare main dishes. And fill the bones with the remains of meat with cold water and put on a strong fire. When it boils, the liquid must be drained. Rinse the chicken, pour again two liters of cold water and put on a small fire. The above technique is called blanching. It eliminates the need to often remove foam. But still you have to do this in order to achieve amber transparency of the soup.
Bookmark vegetables and spices
As soon as the chicken broth ceases to produce copious foam, which must be removed, other ingredients must be added. Unlike soups, we do not fry onions and carrots. And do not even chop the vegetables finely. The onion in the husk is thoroughly washed. The remaining root crops will be cleaned. If they are large, cut into several parts. Put in a simmering broth. Then salt the dish and lay the garnish bouquet. What it is? We take a piece of gauze, put on it a bay leaf, peppercorns and other seasonings. But without fanaticism! In the broth, the use of one clove, thyme or savory is allowed. We turn the gauze over with a bag, which we bandage with a long thread. Dips a garnish bouquet into the broth. We tie the end of the thread around the handle of the pot so that you can easily fetch a bag of soup. Do not stir often in a saucepan. All that is required from the cook is to remove the foam from the surface of the broth.
Useful Tips
Many novice cooks wonder how much to cook chicken for broth. If you make the fire minimal, it will take from an hour to a half time (depending on the volume of the pan). Another frequently asked question: when to salt the broth and add spices? This should be done along with the laying of vegetables. Then the aroma will be extracted as much as possible. At the end of cooking, the dish can only be added.
What to do if we have not overlooked and the foam sank to the bottom? Put two ice cubes in the pan and it will pop up again. What if we salted the soup? We put in a broth a whole peeled potato or a handful of rice groats wrapped in gauze. These ingredients will absorb excess salt. If you want to achieve maximum transparency of the broth, then strain it through cheesecloth, folded in several layers. If the liquid still remains cloudy, put the pan on the fire, and when the soup boils, introduce raw protein whipped with a little water.
If you want to get the most dietary dish, put the prepared 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 noodles is a 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 easy. Yolks should be separated from two eggs. Squirrels will go to prepare other dishes (or to lighten the broth). The yolks are slightly salted and begin to mix a little with the flour. Knead until you get a pretty cool dough. Roll it into a thin layer and be sure to leave it for half an hour to dry it. Then we roll the dough into a roll and cut the “sausage” not too thinly. Such noodles can be prepared for future use. It should be dried, folded into a plastic bag and stored in the refrigerator. How much to cook homemade noodles? She is poured into a boiling broth. After which they give it a boil for about ten minutes.
Vermicelli broth
It happens that the housewives just do not have time to cook the noodles. What to do in this case? You can use thin vermicelli. But if you want to get a crystal clear chicken broth, pasta should first be washed with cold water to remove the coating that covers them. There is another way - boil them in a separate pan. A factory-made vermicelli is being prepared, especially thin, much smaller than homemade noodles made from tough dough. And a very simple way: put Deshirak pasta (or a similar product from another trading company) in plates and pour hot broth. Three minutes later, the dish is ready. You should not choose spaghetti and large "hole" pasta for broth. But the tagliatelle pasta variety, so similar to noodles, is quite suitable.
French soup
Chicken broth appeared in the homeland of Balzac and Joan of Arc. Then the French tried such a fat of beef and pork. And then they began to experiment with the broth itself. Thus was born the famous French transparent chicken soup. Cooking it is a little more complicated than the Slavic broth. But the result is worth the effort. We chop the chicken into pieces. You can take individual parts of the carcass - wings, drumsticks or chicken legs. We put the meat (about two and a half kilograms) onto a baking tray greased with cooking oil or vegetable oil. Vegetables - onion, carrots, celery stalk, 200 g of champignons - peel, cut into large pieces. We lay with the chicken. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Bake meat with vegetables for about forty minutes. We transfer the contents of the pan to the pan. 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 completely eliminates the need to remove foam. Blood has already been baked, and there will be no “noise” on the surface of the soup. Fill four liters of water. We put the pan on the fire. While the liquid boils, prepare a bouquet of garnishes. In this recipe, you can do without gauze. We knit together a long string of several stalks of parsley, thyme, savory, two bay leaves. Salt the chicken broth and dip the garnish in it. Cover the saucepan tightly. We make fire minimal. The liquid should gurgle gently, as if to purr, but in no case boil violently. So the soup should cook for four whole hours. We filter the contents through a colander covered with gauze folded into several layers. We use chicken for other dishes. Throw a garnish bouquet and vegetables (except mushrooms). Mushrooms return to the soup. We put the cooled pan in the refrigerator for several hours. Remove excess fat. The soup is ready.
Strachatella
First, cook a transparent chicken broth with chicken according to the Slavic or French recipe. To turn it into a delicious Italian soup "stracellella", you need only at the very end to apply the following technique. 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. Beat this mixture a little. Bring the broth to a boil. Stir the liquid so that a funnel forms in the middle. In it we will fill the contents of the bowl 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.
Do not be afraid to experiment
Above was the basic recipe for how to cook chicken stock. But this is not a dogma at all. The recipe can be modified. For example, some people like carrots in broth or vegetable frying. You can cook this dish not with pasta, but with rice. Using a basic recipe and your own imagination, you can cook a lot of delicious first courses.