Secrets of making broth. How to cook broth: a complete guide Broth and weight loss

Solid, serious cookbooks very often open with broth recipes. The reasons are not difficult to guess: broths are the basis of cooking, without which warming soups, aromatic sauces, creamy risottos, clear jellies, and many other dishes that make up a significant part of the treasury of world cuisine are impossible. A modern city dweller is in a permanent state of time pressure, and there is a great temptation not to bother with cooking broth, but to dissolve a bouillon cube in boiling water, but this compromise is best left to those who do not particularly care about the contents of their own plate. The point is not even that it is “chemistry” - just try it, and you will unmistakably distinguish a broth from a cube from a broth cooked according to all the rules of culinary science. What does it mean? This means that everyone who wants to learn how to cook must definitely master this simple science - preparing the perfect broth.

Types of broths

Broth is a decoction of meat, fish or vegetables; when properly prepared, it has a pleasant and rich taste (as well as healing properties, although that’s not about that now). Broth can be a dish in itself, but most often it is used as a foundation, an intermediate link in the preparation of other, more complex dishes. We have already listed the main ones in the introduction to this article, and it should also be noted that broth is an excellent base for cooking: meat or fish cooked in broth (meat or fish, respectively) retain a rich taste and aroma, and rice and other The cereals turn out very tasty.

As a rule, broths are made from bones, sometimes with some meat, and with the addition of vegetables and aromatic herbs, but there are many recipes for vegetarian broths. Historically, different types of broths appeared in different parts of the world, so it is quite difficult to classify them into any single classification. Here are the main types of broths:

- the basis of the basics. Chicken broth is so versatile that it is ideal for most soups, sauces and risottos, and the neutral flavor of chicken broth makes it easy to use in fish and seafood dishes.

- from beef, pork or other types of meat. This broth is an excellent base for hearty soups and sauces for meat dishes.

- boiled from bones, as well as heads and fins of fish, used for making fish soup and fish soups, as well as for boiling fish, which makes its taste more rich.

— cooked from vegetables and herbs without adding meat. This broth is quite aromatic and can be used as a complete replacement for chicken or meat broth when preparing meatless and vegetarian dishes.

Mushroom broth- prepared from mushrooms, dried or fresh, and used to make mushroom soups, risotto, etc.

- a light broth based on kombu seaweed and dried bonito tuna shavings, a base for miso soup and other Japanese soups.

Low Soy- Chinese soybean, reusable, in which meat is cooked, after which it is not poured out, but left until next time. Gradually, this broth is enriched with the taste of the products cooked in it and, if handled correctly, can be stored almost forever. They say that some Chinese chefs cook in broths that are hundreds of years old.

In addition, you can highlight a broth made from seafood (quite common in places where seafood is plentiful and they cost pennies), a broth made from the shells of shrimp and other crustaceans (an excellent base for chowder and other dishes that involve shrimp) and other very exotic ones. types of broth. They all have one thing in common - the cooking method, so let's understand the theory of preparing broth.

Broth ingredients

Broth, like any dish in general, begins with the selection of ingredients. I have already mentioned many of them above, but I forgot about the most important one. Let's start with it.

Water

Water is something without which no broth is unthinkable, so use high-quality, tasty water without foreign impurities to prepare it. During the process of cooking the broth, the water will boil away, but if you add water to the broth to replace what has boiled away, this will negatively affect its taste. For this reason, water is always taken a little more than the amount of broth that needs to be obtained. Well, if something goes wrong and you have no other choice, add boiling water rather than cold water so that the cooking process does not stop.

The basis

The basis of the broth is usually bones, meat or fish. Bones are used because they are very cheap but make a wonderful broth, so ideally the bones should be chopped to make the broth richer. Often the broth is cooked not only from bones, but also from meat - this is justified if you are preparing a soup in which this meat will be an integral part, but for all other cases this is not the best idea: the meat will inevitably “give” part of its taste to the broth (this is why it is better to cook meat not in water, but in broth).

If the broth is prepared from fish, in addition to bones, fins and heads are usually used: in this case, the gills must be removed. In addition, I have come across recommendations to remove the eyes so that the broth does not become bitter, but I almost never do this, since in practice the difference in the taste of the finished broth is hardly noticeable.

If you are preparing vegetable broth, the following ingredient serves as the base.

Vegetables and roots

Even if you cook broth from meat, roots and vegetables cannot be neglected - this is the most important component of the broth, which gives its taste richness and depth. Traditional candidates for adding to broth include onions, leeks, garlic, carrots, stalks of celery, and celery and parsley roots. Other vegetables that can be added to the broth, especially if you cook it only from vegetables, are tomatoes, bell peppers, fennel, parsnip root, as well as mushrooms, which do not seem to be vegetables. When cooking Asian broths, in addition to those listed, roots or galangal can be used.

Bouquet garni

If this name is unfamiliar to you, do not be alarmed: the French term “” refers to a bouquet of fragrant herbs that are added when cooking broth or stewing meat to flavor the broth or sauce and, more generally, herbs and spices in general that are added to the broth. The main herbs that are used when cooking broth are parsley, thyme, bay leaf, rosemary, leeks and others; the main spices include black and allspice and cloves. Before adding herbs to the broth, it is convenient to tie them into a small bouquet, which is easy to remove from the finished broth, and put the spices in a gauze bag for the same purpose. I wrote in one of my previous articles.

Making the broth

In this section, I decided to combine all my knowledge about the various nuances of preparing broth, but, of course, it does not pretend to be encyclopedic accuracy. Corrections and additions in the comments are more than welcome.

About the benefits of stocks

Classic culinary school teaches that food waste should be kept to zero, and broth is an ideal way to recycle leftovers that would otherwise end up in the trash. If you're going to cook, cut off the third joint, save the bones, done - don't throw away the green part, cooked - don't rush to get rid of the stems. All this, not to mention the onion and carrot peelings, will become the basis for an excellent broth, and if you make it a habit to freeze the leftovers and regularly boil the broth as they accumulate, your life will become easy and cloudless.

Slicing ingredients

In order for the ingredients to impart their taste and aroma to the broth as quickly as possible, they must be chopped. For these purposes, it is better to chop or saw the bones, and cut the vegetables into several parts. The rules for preparing a classic French broth require finely cutting mirepoix, but in your home kitchen you can simply cut each vegetable into several parts. Cut the onion into 2 or 4 parts and that will be enough.

Pre-roasting

If all the ingredients are added raw to water, the result is what is called white broth. For red broth, which has a richer flavor and aroma, as well as the color from which it gets its name, vegetables and bones are pre-fried. To do this, you first need to chop them (slightly larger than for white broth), and then fry them in a frying pan or bake them under the grill until golden brown and sometimes charred: the grill method seems preferable to me. After this, the broth is boiled as usual.

When to salt the broth?

From time to time you can come across two recommendations for cooking broth, which almost contradict each other. First, the broth needs to be salted at the end. Second - if you want boiled meat, add salt at the end, if you want broth, add salt at the beginning. Who to believe?.. Both theses are not without foundation - on the one hand, the broth will boil away, and if you salt it at the beginning, you can seriously miss it, on the other hand, it helps to “pull out” aromatic substances from the ingredients. Therefore, I do this: I literally add a pinch or two of salt at the very beginning of cooking the broth, and finally salt it at the end. This is a universal technique, which, however, must be used with caution if you are cooking broth for a sauce, which you then plan to boil several times - in this case, it is better to salt not the broth, but the already prepared sauce, so as not to over-salt it.

First water

Another common recommendation is to drain the “first water,” that is, fill the bone with water and bring it to a boil, drain the resulting broth, add new water, and only then begin cooking the broth itself. The arguments in favor of this approach, it must be said, do not sound entirely convincing: supposedly the first water takes away most of the harmful substances contained in meat and almost hormones with antibiotics, but I have not read about at least one serious study on this topic. In some cases (for example, when cooking broth from pork knuckle) this method really has a right to exist, in others I don’t use it. I leave the final decision up to you, especially if you are cooking for children.

Removing foam

As the water approaches the boiling point, a repulsive foam appears on the surface of the future broth, which is usually removed with a spoon or strainer. This foam is nothing more than the protein contained in meat and bones, which, under the influence of high temperature, undergoes denaturation and rises to the surface. There is nothing harmful or dangerous in it, so the foam is removed primarily for aesthetic reasons: if this is not done, the foam will separate into small particles, which will make the broth more cloudy. As a rule, the more foam is formed, the hotter the water boils, so if you properly regulate the heat under the pan, its amount will be minimal. That is why the easiest way to cook broth that is as clear as a tear without any extra hassle is to do it in a slow cooker: this is the very case when the use of this device is more than justified.

Straining the broth

The finished broth is filtered using a colander and, preferably, gauze folded in several layers. Valuable advice that I learned from smart books: after straining the broth, do not rush to throw away the contents of the colander, but press it properly with a slotted spoon. This way you will get a few more drops of broth, the most rich in taste and aroma.

Clarifying the broth

If you didn't skim the foam very well or cooked the broth over too much heat, it will turn out quite cloudy. There is nothing wrong with this, but a number of dishes, primarily soups, require the use of clear broth (for, again, aesthetic reasons). For these purposes, the finished broth can be clarified. The simplest way that I use for this (it must be said, not often) is to beat two egg whites, add to the slightly cooled broth, bring it to a boil again, skim off any foam that appears and strain through cheesecloth. There are also more ingenious ways to clarify broth, in which, along with whipped whites, crushed eggshells, minced meat, ice, or even pressed caviar are used, which was used to clarify broth in pre-revolutionary Russia. Those interested can find information about these methods on their own.

Fat removal

It seems like everyone knows about this, but still. The easiest way to remove as much fat as possible is to put the finished, strained broth in the refrigerator. Under the influence of low temperature, the fat will rise to the surface of the broth and harden, after which it can simply be skimmed off with a spoon.

Freezing broth

It often happens that you need all or part of the cooked broth not right now, but in the distant future. The broth can sit in the refrigerator for a couple of days, but if you plan to use it later, it is better to pour the broth into plastic containers or bags and freeze (label the container if you store several different broths in your freezer). A more sophisticated way is to boil the already strained broth several times, cool and freeze in an ice container. The resulting “broth cubes” can be used as needed to prepare soups, sauces and other dishes.

Recipes

I think that this will be enough theory and we can move on to practice, that is, actually, to cooking the broth. All the recipes given here are universal - they can be used to prepare any dishes, if necessary, adjusting the broth recipe to your taste and according to plans for its further use, for example, a rich gravy for lamb can be prepared by cooking lamb bone broth according to the red broth recipe and boil it several times until thick.

Chicken bouillon

Low

10 minutes + 3 hours

Ingredients

1 kg. chicken bones or bony parts of chicken

1 onion

1 carrot

1 stalk of celery

3 cloves garlic, unpeeled

a few sprigs of parsley

1/2 tsp. black pepper

The smartest thing to do is freeze the bones every time you cook and cut up chicken, and when you have enough of them, place them in a saucepan, add water and bring to a boil. Just before boiling, foam will begin to appear on the surface of the water - remove it, and then add coarsely chopped vegetables, parsley and peas. Simmer the broth over low heat for 3 hours, skimming as needed, salting the broth shortly before it's ready, and straining it after removing the pan from the heat. If you bake chicken bones in the oven until golden brown before cooking, you can cook red chicken broth in the same way.

White beef broth

Low

10 minutes + 4 hours

Ingredients

1 kg. beef or veal bones

1 onion

1/2 leek

1 carrot

1 stalk of celery

3 cloves garlic, unpeeled

100 g celery root and parsley

a few sprigs of thyme and parsley

2 bay leaves

1/4 tsp. allspice

1/4 tsp. black pepper

3 cloves

Pour water over the bones, place over medium heat and bring to a boil. Shortly before boiling, start skimming, then add coarsely chopped vegetables, herbs and spices. Simmer the broth over low heat for 4 hours (or longer), skimming as needed, salting the broth shortly before cooking, and straining it at the end.

Red beef broth

is a concentrated broth made from baked, browned meat bones and meat scraps. The same principle can be applied when it comes to vegetables.

Vegetable demi-glace smells like baked vegetables, and its aroma directly depends on the composition. It is better to use vegetables rich in sugar: onions, garlic, beets, carrots, pumpkin. When baked, such vegetables caramelize well, and this is what gives the broth a wonderful taste.

The vegetable demi-glace you see includes cabbage, beets, onions and carrots, pumpkin and celery, sweet peppers and garlic, eggplant and tomato paste. The vegetable broth turns out to be very bright - with it you can prepare delicious borscht or soup without an ounce of meat, and also enrich the second courses of the Lenten and vegetarian menu.

Demi-glace can be prepared for a specific purpose, but it is better to cook a larger quantity and freeze for future use to be used later as needed.

Cooking time: 1.5-2 hours / Yield: 500-700 ml

Ingredients

1 carrot
onion 1 piece
beets 1 piece
sweet pepper 1 piece
eggplant 1 piece
1 tomato
pumpkin 200 g
quarter head cabbage
celery, root 50 g
garlic 2 cloves
tomato paste 1 tbsp. spoon
vegetable oil 1-2 tbsp. spoons
salt, pepper to taste
about 1 liter of water

Preparation

Big photos Small photos

Vegetables for demi-glace must be cut very thinly so that there is as much brown surface as possible. So, chop the cabbage and cut the pumpkin using a vegetable peeler.

Thinly slice the onion, eggplant, celery, tomato, carrot and garlic.

Peel and chop the bell peppers and beets.

Now mix all the chopped vegetables.

Place the vegetables in a deep pan. Add vegetable oil and tomato paste, as well as salt and pepper. Mix everything with your hands so that the tomato paste and oil are distributed evenly.

Bake the vegetables in the oven at 180 degrees for about 1 hour, stirring them from time to time. It is necessary that the pieces become “fried”.

Pour about a liter of water onto the baking sheet.

The water should cover the vegetables. Return the pan back to the oven for another 20-30 minutes. During this time, the water will be saturated with aromas and tastes.

Strain the prepared vegetable demi-glace through a sieve, and squeeze the vegetables thoroughly.

Good luck with your culinary experiments!

Chicken bone broth is very healthy. You can simply drink this broth or make soup with it. Can be used for making sauces, stewing meat and vegetables.

Total cooking time – 12 hours

Preparation – 10 minutes

Products:

Chicken bones – 500-600 grams

Onion – 1 head (small)

Carrots – 1 piece (small)

Celery – 1 stalk

Vinegar – 1-2 tablespoons

Salt, pepper - to taste

How to make chicken bone broth:

Place chicken bones in a saucepan. You can add chicken necks, legs, stomachs.

Peel the carrots and onions. Cut the celery into several pieces and add to the pan.

You can add parsnips and parsley root when cooking bone broth.

Add allspice and peppercorns. Pour in vinegar. Vinegar will help more fully extract the beneficial minerals calcium and magnesium and other elements from the bones.

Fill the pan with water to the top, leaving about 5-6 cm on top and place on the stove. Bring to a boil, remove foam.

Reduce heat and simmer for at least 12 hours.

Cool the finished broth slightly and strain through a sieve.

Pour into jars and put in the refrigerator.

This admission may seem strange. Many of the dishes in my kitchen are based on broths, and I have written more than once that I can always find different broths in my freezer.

Chicken broth, which we will talk about today, differs from them like a Mercedes from a Zhiguli car. Because it's made from chicken bones, legs, wings, necks and all the stuff you'd normally throw away. But that's not all. This broth takes almost 24 hours to prepare.

Do not rush to switch to some other reading with indignation. Bone broths are one of the hottest topics in health food circles right now. The fashion for these broths came from New York, where they are now sold to-go, and in the New York crowd you are now increasingly seeing people with broth rather than coffee.

This fashion has not yet reached us, which means that you can (and should!) prepare bone broth at home. A wonderful book by Katherine and Ryan Harvey, The Bare Bones Broth (), was written about how to do this.

For now, I’ll just say that few things I’ve read on gastronomic topics in recent years have made such a strong impression on me and had such an impact on what I cook as this book. New recipes with broth prepared in a new way are also waiting for you in the coming days.

Without further ado, I move on to chicken bone broth.

The recipe mentions an approximate selection of vegetables and herbs for chicken broth. You can add whatever you have in the refrigerator: leeks, celery, various types of onions. Roasting the vegetables in the oven will give the broth a richer flavor and color.

This time I did not bake the roots and vegetables.

An important rule: all ingredients must always be covered with water, and the broth should be cooked over very low heat and without a lid.

The tastier broth will come from soup chickens or those that did not grow in an incubator.

Ingredients:

2 chickens;
450 gr. chicken feet;
60 ml apple or white vinegar;
6-8 liters of water;
4 cups ice cubes;
3 carrots, peeled and cut in half;
4 onions, peeled and cut in half;
3 sprigs fresh thyme;
3 sprigs of fresh rosemary;
3 bay leaves.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Cut the chicken into legs, breasts, wings and thighs. Use meat parts for other recipes.

Place the wings, necks, chicken frame and legs on a baking sheet and bake in a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until lightly browned.

For a lighter taste, you can skip this step.

If you drink this herbal broth, this step will impart good flavor, umami, and a velvety tongue quality that you won't be able to forget.

Place the bones in a large saucepan and add cold water to completely cover the chicken parts. Add vinegar and bring water to a boil over high heat.

Delicious, aromatic chicken for the holiday table.
The chicken carcass can be marinated overnight or for 2-4 hours before baking.

for 6-8 servings

Marinade

10 cloves of garlic
2-3 sprigs of rosemary (2-3 tbsp leaves) or 1 tbsp dried
1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes
4 tbsp olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp coarse salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

roast chicken (2 kg/4 lb)
1/2 - 1 cup white wine or broth or water

Vegetables

1 large red or sweet onion or 2 medium
2 sweet peppers
4 medium carrots

salt and pepper to taste

For the marinade:
In a small saucepan, heat olive oil over medium-low heat. Add garlic cloves, rosemary and hot pepper. Passivate over low heat for 8-10 minutes, during which time the oil is infused with the juices of garlic and rosemary.
Make sure that the garlic does not burn, but only slightly browns and becomes a little soft (burnt garlic has a sharp bitter taste).
Remove from heat and cool.
Add lemon juice, salt and black pepper.

Leave 2-3 tbsp of marinade and 4-5 cloves of garlic for vegetables.

Carefully separate the chicken skin from the meat and coat the chicken carcass with marinade, under the skin and on top. Cut 4-5 cloves of garlic in half lengthwise and place under the skin of the breast and thighs. In the place with the garlic, you can put small sprigs of rosemary or lemon slices. The squeezed lemon halves can be placed inside the carcass.

Tie the chicken legs with a stiff thread. Tuck the wings behind the head.

Place the chicken breast side down in a baking dish, cover with cling film (or place the chicken carcass in a large sealed bag) and refrigerate for 2-4 hours or overnight.
1 hour before baking, remove the bird from the refrigerator. If the chicken was in a bag, place it “breast side down” in a baking dish.

Prepare vegetables:
Cut the onion lengthwise into 6-8 segments. Cut the carrots into cubes.
Peppers - stripes.
Mix vegetables with rosemary marinade. Add a little salt and pepper.

Garlic cloves from the marinade can be added 5-10 minutes before the end of baking vegetables, or cut into slices and added to boiled potatoes, or finely chopped and added to mashed potatoes.
Vegetables can be baked in the same form as the chicken or on a separate baking sheet. Roasting vegetables takes 45-60 minutes.
I prefer to bake vegetables separately, because... The baking time for poultry and vegetables is different, so it is easier to do this in a separate bowl.

Preheat oven to 220°C/425°F.

Add 1 cup of wine or water to the pan with the chicken (this will prevent the juices dripping from the chicken from burning at the high temperature of the oven).
Sprinkle the top of the carcass with a pinch of coarse salt (I use crystalline Epsom sea salt flakes) and freshly ground pepper.
Bake for 20-30 minutes until lightly browned.
Remove the pan from the oven, turn the carcass breast side up, sprinkle with a pinch of coarse salt and pepper.
(at the bottom of the mold you can put a lattice or several pieces of crumpled foil or 2-3 stalks of celery so that the bird carcass does not “sit” in the juices and bakes better, but you can do without it)

Add vegetables immediately or after 15-20 minutes.

Reduce oven temperature to 190°C/375°F.
Roast for about an additional hour or until the meat reaches a temperature of ~75°C/160°-170°F at the thickest part of the thigh.

During baking, stir the vegetables several times and pour the juices over the chicken. Remove the chicken from the oven, cover with foil and let rest for 15 minutes. Cut the chicken into portions, place on a large dish along with baked vegetables and boiled new potatoes, sprinkle with parsley or serve positioned. Instead of new potatoes, you can make mashed potatoes or fluffy rice.

Bon appetit.

Roasted poultry bone broth

Another recycling or method of preparing products that are so often unused and thrown away after a feast - bones and poultry frames, from which a very tasty and rich broth is obtained.

Place the remaining bones and frame into the pan in which the bird was baked.

Add:

onion cut in half
a couple of carrots
2-3 stalks of celery
parsley stems or roots...

(I add vegetables that I will later use to serve chicken broth - carrots, parsnips or rutabaga)

or you can not add vegetables at all, but just use the bones and juices remaining after roasting the bird.

Place in a well-heated oven for 15-20 minutes to brown the frame.
You can skip baking and immediately put all the leftovers in a large saucepan, add water to the pan and scrape off all the browning. Fill the pan with water, 2-5 liters (with less water or more bones, the broth becomes richer and turns into jelly when it cools).
If lemon was baked with the chicken, you can add it too - it adds a very pleasant aroma.
Add a little salt.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer over low heat for 1-2 hours.

Skim off excess fat from the surface (which can be used to flavor other dishes) and strain the broth through cheesecloth or paper towels.