Make a delicious chicken feet broth soup! The rich gelatine of the feet forms a rich and nutritious base.
The other day my dad announced he was missing chicken feet. (What?!)
His mother, my grandmother, who was born in 1899 and lived to be 97, used chicken feet when she made her broth, and my father could always tell when a soup was made with chicken feet broth.
Cooking chicken feet has been a human activity for thousands of years. Most of our grandmothers or great-grandmothers actually used feet in their stock. Chicken foot broth is fabulous, and with all that gelatin, it’s incredibly good for you.
After a long search I found some old recipes. All recipes call for boiling the feet first, then draining the boiling water. I think the point of this step is to allow most of the extra protein and impurities to leave the feet and come to the surface.
Another step that all old recipes do is clipping off the tips of the claws. I’m not sure why, but I suspect that cutting off the tips of the toes makes it easier to get out the marrow and thus the gelatin in the bones.
Expect lots of broth from the chicken feet. A pound foot makes about a liter of stock, pretty much a bargain at $1 a pound foot. Where can you find chicken feet? Probably the best place to look is in Chinese or Asian markets.
How to make broth from chicken feet
ingredients
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2 lb chicken feet
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2 big carrotscut in half
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1 Onioncut into wedges
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2 celery ribscut in half
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1 bunch fresh thyme
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1 bay Sheet
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10 peppercorns
special equipment
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cheesecloth or a fine mesh strainer (ideally both)
method
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Hard boil chicken feet for 5 minutes first:
Bring 2 liters of water to a boil. Place the chicken feet in a large soup pot and cover with boiling water. Boil 5 minutes.
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Drain, rinse, and clip and discard the claw tips:
Drain the chicken feet completely. Rinse with cold water to keep feet cool enough to touch.
Use a sharp knife to cut off the tips of the claws and discard. They should cut easily if you cut them through the joint. If there are still rough spots on the hoof pad, trim them off with a paring knife.
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Simmer the chicken feet for 4 hours:
Place chicken feet in a clean large stock pot. Fill with cold water to cover feet 1 inch. Add carrots, onions, celery, thyme, bay leaf and peppercorns. Bring to a simmer and immediately reduce the temperature to low. Partially cover, leaving about a half inch crack or so, and allow the broth to simmer over low simmer for 4 hours. Skim off any scum that may come to the surface.
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Uncover and continue to simmer:
Cover the pot and increase the heat slightly to maintain a low simmer with the pot now uncovered. Cook for another hour or two. At this point, you’ll reduce inventory to make it easier to store.
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Strain broth:
Strain through several layers of cheesecloth or a fine-mesh sieve (both are best) into a saucepan.
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Pour into quart-sized glasses.
Let it cool for about an hour before storing it in the fridge. When your broth has cooled, it should set nicely into a gel.
Links:
Why did the chicken cross the road? – “So you don’t bang his feet off and make chicken broth!”, Just the Right Size cooks a portion of chicken foot broth
| nutritional information (per serving) | |
|---|---|
| 258 | calories |
| 17g | Fat |
| 4g | carbohydrates |
| 22g | protein |
