# Chicken Broth



## abgstat (Apr 22, 2007)

Using thighs, backs, necks and legs, I start with cold, salted water and bring it up to a gentle simmer. While it's cooking, I skim the top. After a while, I add celery, carrots and onions and cook it longer.
This is how my mom taught me to make chicken broth, but lately I'm ending up with a very cloudy, gray, unappealing broth. 
What causes that? How can I get a lovely, clear broth, just like Mom's??


----------



## cookie jim (Apr 24, 2007)

sounds like you have the right technique.I never use salt add egg shells to the broth.look up making consume for the egg addition.been to long for me to remember but I'm sure it will help with your clarity. good cookin...cookie


----------



## greenawalt87 (Jul 26, 2004)

yes egg shells will help clarify the broth and no salt


----------



## dc sunshine (Feb 26, 2007)

Ditto that - can also add the egg white. I bring the water and chicken up to the boil and then reduce to a simmer for an hour before adding the vegetables - also try adding a tomato to help the clarity. Make sure to strain thru cheesecloth afterwards. Good luck


----------



## paul.d. (Apr 20, 2007)

I would place all my ingredients into a suitable sized pot, cover with cold water and bring to the boil as fast as possible, this will bring all the residue to the surface skim then reduce to the heat to a simmer, do not add salt at this stage.

if your still having problems you could always quickly blanch your chicken carcass etc in boiling water for a few seconds refresh with cold water then do as normal


----------



## mezzaluna (Aug 29, 2000)

I'm a home cook. Until I was a member here, I thought a raft was just something on which Tom Sawyer drifted down the Mississippi. 

My method is to strain the broth after the chicken parts have simmered for about an hour. Then I strain the broth through a few layers of cheesecloth. This gives you something short of the clarity of consomme, but then it's homemade chicken broth.


----------



## foodpump (Oct 10, 2005)

Start off with the chicken. Chicken that is old,(been slaughtered over 3 or 4 days) will have more dead protein than one which has been slaughtered a day ago. The dead protein will cloud the stock. You can place the chicken in a pot and run it under cold water,changing the water until it becomes clear, and then start the cooking process.

I like to bring the stock to a full boil, then turn it down to a bare simmer. By this time all of the protein will have coagulated, and by placing a ladle in the center of the pot and agitating it, it will force all of the scum to the sides of the pot, which I can easily scoop off with the ladle.

I tend to stay away from salt. If you add 2 tbsp of salt to a 5qt pot and reduce the 5 qts to 3 qts, you will still have 2 tbsps of salt, just saltier stock, that's all.


----------



## abgstat (Apr 22, 2007)

Wow! Thank you all for the great replies! Now my next question is......what does the egg shell do and how many should I use?? 
I've never heard of that before but I'm gonna give it a try. I'll also hold off on the salt.


----------



## shel (Dec 20, 2006)

That's somethging I've done in the past, and am doing with more regularity now. It seems to help in terms of making the final result a little "cleaner" both in terms of clarity and taste.

Shel


----------



## abgstat (Apr 22, 2007)

Well, I will try that, refreshing with cold water.......but I'm still curious as to what the egg shell does and how many to use.
Do you just crack open an egg and throw out the white and yolk and just put the shell in the broth??


----------



## paul.d. (Apr 20, 2007)

the egg white takes the impurity out off the broth it's the same way as if you were to make a consomme, there is one more thing that you can do if your broth is cloudy, you could mince up some vegetables add some egg whites and the shell mix this up with a couple of handfuls of ice. Add this to your cloudy broth whisk very quickly for a couple of seconds then just leave it alone bring back to the boil and then simmer gently.
The ice will stop the egg cooking instantly giving it time too take all the impurities out of the broth


----------



## kevlette (Sep 13, 2013)

your stock will be cloudy if you let it boil instead of simmer -- the fat ends up emulsifying in the stock - best to keep an eye on it - so it doesn't go beyond a simmer.


----------



## dcarch (Jun 28, 2010)

To avoid boiling completely yet maintain a temperature higher than boiling to get the most out form you precious chicken parts in the shortest amount of time:

1. Put all your ingredients in a metal pot, add water.

2. Put the pot in a pressure cooker and cook for about 30 to 45 minutes. Let pressure drop very slowly by itself.

You are basically steaming at higher than boiling point temperature without boiling. 

The stock will be amazing.

dcarch


----------



## samwest61 (Aug 11, 2013)

I think the main cause of cloudy stock is not starting with nice cold water. I was taught this from day one. 

"The reason we start with cold water is that certain proteins, notably albumin, will only dissolve in cold water. And albumin helps clarify a stock. Therefore, starting with cold water helps release the albumin, giving us a clearer stock."

Also straining through some cheese cloth and a fine strainer is ideal.


----------



## dcarch (Jun 28, 2010)

SamWest61 said:


> I think the main cause of cloudy stock is not starting with nice cold water. I was taught this from day one.
> 
> "The reason we start with cold water is that certain proteins, notably albumin, will only dissolve in cold water. And albumin helps clarify a stock. Therefore, starting with cold water helps release the albumin, giving us a clearer stock."
> 
> Also straining through some cheese cloth and a fine strainer is ideal.


Cheese cloth helps, but not that much.

Try coffee filter. Very slow, so you need to do it in a refrigerator. It takes hours.

The ultimate way is an ultra-centrifuge machine, it will give you scary clear broth. The machine only cost $10,000 to $30,000. Don't laugh. I know people who are really into Modernist cooking have those machines. Go to ebay and you will see bidding wars when one of this machine comes up.

dcarch


----------



## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

I've heard of the egg shells, but it's not at all clear what to do with them.  does one crush them and toss them in?  then what do you do with them, do they float or sink?  does this require straining afterwards?  or throw a few eggshell halves into the broth?  or skim with an egg shell instead of a spoon?  I think this is what the op wanted to know.  I would also like to know how they work.  I can see the whites capturing stuff and then cooking and becoming easy to strain out, but how do eggshells make broth clear?


----------



## dillbert (Jul 2, 2008)

the "classicly" defined issue with a cloudy broth is a too vigorous boiling/simmering/cooking.  supposedly this results in a lot of very fine particles / protein compounds exiting "the bones/etc" and floating around in the water/liquid.  

frankly I don't know how accurate that is to the nth detail, but in my experience the theory holds up.  I would further add, making 15 quarts of "broth" in a 20 qt stock pot works way far more better than trying to make a quart of broth in a sauce pan.  I'm thinking it's easier to control the degree of "simmer" in a larger pot....

now, "particles in water" fall into various categories.  sand will fall to the bottom.  organic matter will "sorta' float around" and then there's the "colloidal" suspension - particles so fine they remain "suspended" and will not "fall out / precipitate" - fat(s) is a different matter - absence emulsifiers, they will float to the top where they can be skimmed off or chilled to solidified and removed by chunks.

Chicken carcasses are really good at producing colloidal suspensions in my house.

then, there's the "clarify" thing - clarify a broth for a consume,,, for example.  which is all  fine and good and likely a "required" thing in high end French soups, but actually in my feeble home kitchen, I make broths for use later in gravies / etc - roux + home made broth = really good stuff on the table.

there's a "raft" (oops, bad pun) of methods for clarifying broth.  so far as I've learned, the eggs shells really only bring the residual egg white to the party.  three day old dried out egg shells,,,, might not work so well - not tried that.  the egg white proteins form a soft "foam" that easily traps the fine particles.  as will a super fine strainer, or a coffee filter,,,, however in my limited experience, the eggs white raft is superior to any "filter technique"

done the coffee filter thing, not equal to clarifying with egg whites....


----------



## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

Dillbert said:


> so far as I've learned, the eggs shells really only bring the residual egg white to the party. three day old dried out egg shells,,,, might not work so well - not tried that.


Those were my thoughts exactly Dilbert, but i thought that since this idea has been around longer than me (and i've been around pretty long) it may have had some other explanation - who knows, something about the calcium in the eggshell or something. I presume that since in restaurants they just throw in the eggshells (because cracking lots of eggs there is a good amount of residue in them and a lot of shells to add residue), people assumed it was the shell and not the eggwhite attached to the shell that did the trick.


----------



## samwest61 (Aug 11, 2013)

You really don't need to be messing around with egg whites to make a nice clear stock. I only ever do this when clarifying a stock for a consomme.


----------



## marteen hook (Oct 22, 2013)

I also face problems to make proper Chicken Broth. But after reading this post I can prepare delicious Chicken Broth. Thanks for so much useful information.


----------

