Meat Stock
An easy soup base, but also a nutritious and warming drink for any time of day. Great for gut-healing, im- mune-boosting, blood-sugar balancing, bone & tissue health, anti-aging, and weight loss. I know it seems unusual to Americans, but I would highly recommend making sure you have plenty of tendons, skin, and bones including adding the chicken feet or other collagen-heavy parts of animals listed below; this is where a lot of the beautiful nutrients are! I find these at the local asian or hispanic grocery stores.
You can store the stock in glass containers like mason jars or pyrex containers. Let them cool before putting them in the fridge or freezer. You can also just use some of the stock, re-add some of the chicken and the veggies and voila you have a delicious chicken soup! Try blending it, too! Save the bones to use for other broths until they crumble apart.
The nickel data for this is difficult to estimate because the broth is the water which has gained some but not all of the minerals and other nutrients from the ingredients, like the chicken.
INGREDIENTS
3–4 lbs whole chicken, or combination of legs/thighs bone-in, or quarters.
6–8 chicken feet, knuckle bones, hooves, oxtail, (unless histamine sensitive)
2–4 tbsp sea salt
3–4 sprigs of rosemary or thyme, and can add other lovely herbs too!
2–4 carrots*, roughly chopped •
1–2 onion or shallots, roughly chopped •
2–4 celery rib, roughly chopped
Juice of 1 lemon* or a little apple cider vinegar
3–4 garlic* cloves
Any remaining veggies in your fridge about to go bad
Water, filtered, to cover
DIRECTIONS
I start in the morning because I like to let my finished broth sit and cool an hour or so before handling it.
Put the chicken, salt, herbs, & lemon juice/ACV in a big stock pot, dutch oven, or slow cooker.
Fill with filtered water if possible to cover all the ingredients and let sit for ~30 mins to help break down the tissue a little.
Cook for the following time depending on your “instrument”:A dutch oven (5–6 quarts-sized) at 350 degrees F for 3 hours
A Slow Cooker on low for 6 to 8 hours
A large stock pot (first to a boil, then simmer on low for ~3-5 hours; I recommend at least 3)
7–10 liters is a good size.
Skim some of the crud off the top after it begins to boil
For the last 1 hour put the veggies in.
When done, separate the broth from the chicken.
There are many ways you can do this:
What I do: I let it sit and cool for a bit on the stove unless I need to start the soup right away using the broth.
I use an 8 cup glass pyrex measuring cup and place it in the sink. Then I slowly pour the broth into the cup until it reaches near the top. Then I pour the broth into mason jars and repeat until it gets too hard to do so without the contents spilling into the measuring cup. Then I may use a strainer over the top of the measuring cup or just deal with a few of the veggies getting in.
Then I put the chicken on a cutting board to cool and then pull it apart and put the chicken pieces in a refrigerator-safe container and place in the fridge.