Punk Rock Chicken Carving Night and Other Obsessions

The butcher department of my local grocery store announced that they'd be having a free class on chicken preparation which I imagined would be cooking lessons so I eagerly signed up.  I'm iffy enough with cooking as it is and when it comes to meat I'm utterly clueless.  It's been a little over a year since I started eating meat and I still haven't had any chicken, mostly because I think of it as dog food and an inferior source of fat.  But a free cooking class can't hurt.

I was worried that I'd registered too late and wouldn't get in to the class but as it turned out I was the only person who showed up.  Which meant I got to pick the music and what better music for learning to cut up a chicken than the Ramones?  And Social Distortion?  And after that the guys giving the lesson turned off the music because apparently 'Sheena is a Punk Rocker' is an acquired taste and maybe a bit too distracting for the precise work of chicken butchery.  The funny thing is that the instructor initially was trying to find Classical music for me before he asked what I wanted to hear.

The class turned out to be more about how to cut up a whole chicken, bones and all, with some cooking advice thrown in.  One of the instructors grew up in New Orleans and I guess they know a thing or two about cooking down there.  It turns out that there's an art to chicken carving, at times it looked like magic.  I'll have to consult YouTube to jog my memory if I ever need to do this for myself but at least I have an idea of what to do.  Because whole chickens are way cheaper than buying the individual parts plus you get some parts of meat like the 'oyster' that are supposedly the tastiest parts that don't get sold with the individual parts.  And the bones.  The instructors sent me home with the demo chicken and Lola was about the happiest I've seen her in years when I gave her the back bone to munch.  So hard to find chicken backs these days.

Which leads me to my next obsession - bones.  Or rather trying to find good grass fed joint bones, chicken or pig feet, etc. to make broth.  Because I've become seriously obsessed with the broth.  I know, you're thinking when is this crazy lady going to stop carrying on about the gelatinous meat juice?  I will, I promise, but I woke up the other night plotting my next broth and trying to think of a dog proof place in the house for a crock pot where I won't start a fire.  Because surely I have nothing else to worry about at 2 a.m.?  Now many of you dog people can't judge because I know you wake up in the wee dark hours agonizing over your running dogwalk.  And I know because I've been there too.  At least the broth leads to wonderful, magical health benefits whereas the running dogwalk leads to Manic Depressive Neurotic Crazyland and Not Enough Therapy on the Planet.  Jonny came home from a biking trip in Utah with some horrible plague cough of sinus infection bronchitis ick that lasted nearly 3 weeks and thanks to the magically delicious mystical healingness of the broth I never caught it.  Plus the dogs love it.  LOVE it.  So much craziness for my broth.  We have some every day.

Which means I need to keep a pot going on the stove every week which means lots and lots of bones.  Must be grass fed as well.  No Monsanto GM glyphosate ridden feed for me or the bones in my broth.  The local grocery sometimes has grass fed marrow bones for $2.99 per lb which is good but the oxtail or shin bones are $5.99/lb and I need about 5-6 lbs of bones per stock pot so that adds up quickly.  I've been calling around to the local farms but so far no luck.  My kingdom for some grass fed knuckle bones and chicken feet.

I've even been hatching a plot for a Broth Stall on the Pearl St. Mall.  Welcome to 'Madame Fitwell's Naughty Broth-el'.  Except that I'd rather shove hot pokers in my eyes while listening to the Grateful Dead than deal with tourists and Boulderites on the Pearl St. Mall.  And I'd end up running a soup kitchen for all the homeless people downtown because I wouldn't be able to turn them away, even the scamster ones because how do you tell 'real' homeless from the con artists?  I'd be out of business in a day.  Plus it turns out someone already beat me to it.  Apparently broth is trendy.  Who knew?  I don't think I've ever been on the front edge of a trend ever.  You can even mail order your bone broth.  But then you'd miss the fun of making it yourself and the awesome smell in the house and the joy of skimming the tallow off the top.  Plus the mystery of how it'll turn out.  Will it be super jiggly?  You want it super jiggly, definitely want your broth to have some junk in the trunk, not all runny skinny Boulder triathlete.  It's a fun science experiment each time with the bonus of delicious immune boosting power juice at the end.

I swore I'd never do it but I'm going to be one of those crazy dog ladies with the chest freezer in the garage for when I finally find a bone source.  A terrible horror chest full of all manner of frozen animal body parts.  Jonny can get a deal on a freezer through his work, we're just waiting for a free shipping deal to come along and I'm there.  I think I'll write a book, 'The Secret Life of Bone Broth'.  Long live the weirdo obsessions.

Every Broth You Take

I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to have a tan, wasps landing on me and a craving for ice cream in the middle of March.  Two days in a row of 79 degree temps. is hardly broth brewing weather but nonetheless after 72 hours of bubbling bones I have broth.  And lots of leftover meat for the dogs.

This is what it looked like after I strained it.

Here it is the next day after spending a night in the fridge.  The white stuff is a nice layer of tallow that I can use for cooking fat.

 I scooped it off the top and ended up with a nice haul.

I'm excited about this because yikes, grass fed tallow is spendy, $24 including shipping for 14 oz.  Not sure how much I have there because I didn't compact it but that alone probably comes close to almost sort of covering the cost of the bones.  Plus I have all the broth which probably more than makes up the cost, at least compared to what it costs in New York City ($4.75 for an 8 oz cup, $7 for 12 oz).  Maybe I could go into business here in Boulder.

I heated up a bowl for myself.

And the verdict is . . . hmmm, not quite sure yet.  It isn't awful, but I can't say that it's mmmmmm, amazingly delectable either.  Part of it is that I'm still not used to meat and the oxtail is a very strong smell and flavor.  Will take some getting used to but I'm optimistic that I can do it.  Also I can use it for stock in other things though it is a very overpowering flavor so I can't use it in just anything.

Of course I shared with the dogs.  They give it an enthusiastic thumbs up.  Plus this is a great way to keep Strummer occupied for at least a few minutes.

I did make one big mistake and that was not paying attention while I was straining the broth.  I didn't notice that the  bowl I was straining into was overflowing so I lost some precious broth down the sink and then lost some more when I poured the overflow into another bowl.  I know I lost some fat because here's a photo of the broth from the crock pot before I overfilled the bowl.

The layer of fat is almost twice the layer from the photo at the top of the post that was taken after I'd lost the overflow.  Next time I'll pay closer attention.

The other thing I'd do differently is use lime juice rather than apple cider vinegar but that's a personal thing, I hated the smell of the vinegar but I like lime juice.

Also I'd add the onions much later, maybe 12 hours before I was going to be done.  The onions turned black and carmelized the first day and made for a sticky slimy mess.  Plus I'm sure that's not healthy.

Otherwise I don't think I'd do anything all that much differently.  Would like to try some different types of bones, that oxtail is so strong.  But this will require some research into local farms because the grocery stores don't seem to carry anything else.

I froze a small portion of the broth but left a big bowl that I'll hopefully use this week.  Jonny won't eat it but the dogs will share it with me.  Now to find some recipes!

Dem Bones Dem Bones

This is a very exciting weekend for me because I'm attempting to make my first bone broth.

Here are my bones, all roasted and ready to go.

They're marrow bones and oxtail bones, supposedly grass fed though I have my suspicions about that.  Ideally I'd have more joint bones - knees, shoulders, etc.-but even the Boulder Mega Whole Foods doesn't carry them.  In fact Whole Foods had zero grass fed bones and told me to call back in a couple of days, maybe they'd get some in, maybe not.  I got these bones from Lucky's which is my local grocery store and way more awesome than Whole Foods.  Though I'm not entirely sure I believe these bones are grass fed.  Anyway, Google informs me that there are loads of ranches in Boulder County selling grass fed beef, bones, organ meat, etc.  I'll have to do some calling around for the next batch but these will do for my first attempt.

I've got a pot on the stove and a crock pot going.  You're supposed to simmer the bones for anywhere from 24-72 hours and since I spent an asston of money on these bones, I'm going for 72 hours to get the maximum nutrients out of them.  Here's what the crock pot looks like today.  We'll see what it looks like in 3 days.

I was concerned that the smell of the bones cooking would be nauseous making but it's actually the smell of the apple cider vinegar that's setting my stomach to queasy.  I hate the smell of both vinegar and fermenting apples so this is a special sort of hell for me but thankfully it's warm enough to open some windows and hopefully the smell will calm down in a bit.  Will have to think of something particularly good smelling to cook for dinner.

The internets are full of videos and blogs about bone broth and how to make it but I never saw any tips for keeping dogs out of it.  This was my technique for the crock pot when I went to masters swim practice but I hadn't plugged it in yet so I'm not sure what to do for the rest of the weekend. 

The other pot went on top of the fridge.  I'll have to figure out a way to block off the entire kitchen.  Because Naughty Dogs.  I do not want to come home to Strummer wearing a stock pot's worth of bone broth and onions.