Musings on chicken broth and an easy way to cook a chook...
(a chook is a chicken for those who don't speak Australian)
Once every week or two I buy a whole chicken. On average I can get 3 meals out of 1 bird, and I think I buy it as much, if not more, for the stock that I make as for the meat itself. The best broths are made with a lot of meat on the bones, sometimes even a whole chicken, but I can never quite justify not using everything I possibly can before sending the carcass to the stockpot, at least not for my everyday stock.
I am all about ‘good enough’ home cooking, that is to say that it won’t be the most perfect, luxurious, time-consuming thing for everyday use, the important thing is maximizing the effort that I do make. A few tips for ‘everyday’ stock: roast chicken makes the best broth, so I try to make what whatever I have FEEL as luxurious as a whole roast chicken by roasting it to golden brown- with salt and a little olive oil- before it goes in. I am often just using left-overs from a roast chicken, so that’s easy, I just throw them in. If I am lucky I might find some chicken backs at the store, they are wonderfully cheap and are great for broth, just pretend they are a happy plump little bird and give them a good bake in the oven before dropping them into the pot. Same goes for drumsticks. The next thing is that all of the vege scraps you would normally throw away throughout the week have loads of flavour and nutrients. I keep a container in the fridge and instead of putting my scraps in the bin or compost, I save them for my weekly pot of broth, along with herb stalks and anything I just can’t seem to get though in time. There are some things that don’t go in- nothing starchy like potato, or salad-y like lettuce or cucumber. Celery and onion are the best stock veg in my opinion, fennel is close behind. I always add an extra onion and stick or two of celery if I have them, occasionally a carrot, and I like a few whole peppercorns in there too. Sometimes it’s nice to have ginger and a little star anise as well, just remember that whatever goes into the broth affects the what it becomes later on, so maybe don’t do ginger if you want to make a Milanese risotto. Then I cook the stock for anywhere from 2-8 hours depending on how much is there and what I am doing for the day. I think 4 hours is a general sweet spot, if you don’t have enough guts in the pot to start with it begins to just taste dull after a while, looses its vibrancy. When a stock is good, some are better than others, a cup of it with some salt and black pepper added is one of the best things in the world. The recipe for Paprika Chicken, below, is just one way I cook my chicken before it becomes broth. Anything that is left in the pan, goes into the stock pot and I make a special effort to rinse and lift off anything that has caramelised (not burnt!) on the pan and get it into the broth- all the flavour possible!
(this picture has nothing to do with chicken, but it was my view while I was preparing it and so much more visually appealing than the photos of chicken that I took, see below)
Paprika Chicken
This is a simple but robust way to season chicken. I always like recipes that seem like more than the sun of their parts, and on the whole I am always trying to use less ingredients to maximum effect. It is one of those dishes that requires very little effort- once the chicken is cut up, pretty much everything goes into the pan together, you can roast it straight away or prep it to cook later. It doesn’t require much babysitting either, once it goes into the oven you can almost forget about it until it’s just about done. In the end you get perfectly roasted chicken with a good sauce that you can choose to leave in large pieces or shred (which I often do when I am cooking for the kids and want the bones for making stock later). I don’t bother to skim the sauce when I use a jointed chicken, there is less fat than a whole roasted bird, and the fat is all delicious flavour, but if you are worried about it feel free to do so. This is also obviously great with any cuts of chicken (I have used a tray of drumsticks before) if you don’t want to cut it up yourself (although I definitely recommend learning how to do so), just be sure to purchase skin-on meat as the skin protects it from the high heat on the oven, and is of course the tastiest part.
This is also good with a couple of chopped tomatoes or fresh peppers- I especially like the long sweet green variety I can get in the summer- thrown into the bottom of the the pan, or swap a little of the paprika with smoked paprika (go easy though or it will be too rich!).
I would serve everything with garlic yoghurt if I could, don’t worry if you can’t be bothered, sometimes I just can’t, even if it is one of the easiest things to do in the kitchen! A good dollop of plain yogurt works just as well, but neither of them is really necessary. The green sauce is a nice addition but also isn’t necessary, a good handful of parsley or cilantro and a squeeze of lemon or lime is all you need.
We ate this last night with fried potatoes and aioli rather than garlic yoghurt, and a green salad. It’s also great with beans- I had it with blackbeans but any bean would be great, rice, couscous, bulgar wheat, even corn bread. The leftovers make a delicious sandwich filling- shred them up and slap them on some bread with mayo (or hummus if you have some laying around) green sauce or herbs, thinly sliced raw onion and lettuce, oh and maybe some feta!
Chicken:
1 whole chicken- mine was quite large, just over 4 lbs (about 2kg), jointed. Save the cage and neck for broth (or use this method from Delia Smith which does not leave you with a cage, but I could not resist this video- that kitchen!)
1 onion, sliced into crescent moon shapes
2 T paprika
1 T whole cumin seeds (ground is fine if that’s all you have), I just like the bursts of flavor
Plenty of salt- depends on what salt you use, I used about 2 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1/4 c olive oil
3/4 cup of white wine, or water if you prefer
2 limes or 1 lemon
Preheat oven to 400*F (200*c)
Place the chicken and onion in a pan just large enough to comfortably hold them. Sprinkle with salt and spices and olive oil and rub over evenly. Arrange so that the onion is on the bottom of the chicken pieces and the chicken is skin side up.At this point you can either bake it straight away or cover and refrigerate for later.
Place the chicken in the oven for 40 mins, then add the wine or water and cook for another 10-20 minutes or until the meat falls easily away from the bones. If you are worried about the breast meat drying out you may want to remove those before the legs are done, but I find them to be just fine cooked as long as everything else in my oven. Remove from oven and squeeze a couple of limes or a lemon over the top.
Garlic yoghurt:
1 cup greek yoghurt
1-2 cloves garlic, grated on a micro plane or smashed to a pulp
Hefty pinch salt
mix everything together in a bowl and season to taste, don’t skimp on the salt.
Green sauce:
1 bunch parsley
1 bunch cilantro (Corriander)
3 cloves garlic
1/2 jalapeño
Juice 1-2 limes to taste (or lemon)
Olive oil, about 1/4-1/3 cup
roughly chop the herbs and put them in a food processor with the garlic, jalapeño and a good pinch of salt. Pulse until roughly chopped. Add the citrus juice and half the olive oil and blend. Add more oil as needed to make a ‘thick but saucy’ consistency, I prefer my salsas to have a good amount of texture, and do beware of over-blending once the oil is added as it may turn bitter. Adjust seasoning to taste- it may need to more salt/citrus/olive oil.
