When I was growing up, my Grandma used to tell me not to waste food because there were starving children in Africa. I was always a little confused considering the fact that we were living in South Africa! Anyway, I grew up in a household that did not waste food. Food was repurposed into different dishes: vegetable discards were thrown into the pigeon coop and meat discards were cooked into the dogs' food. Nothing was wasted! To this day, I don't like wasting food and am thrifty when buying groceries. To a large extent, I plan meals and dishes around certain "anchor" ingredients. Which ingredients? I look at grocery store flyers on Tuesdays to see what's going to be on sale and buy on Wednesdays when it's oftentimes double coupon day for some stores! Not only are these items cheaper, but they are also usually in season and therefore tastier and the sale turnover is high, resulting in them being very fresh.
I find that a whole rotisserie chicken is one of those foods that gives you a big bang for your buck. One side benefit is a nutritious, flavorful chicken bone broth which is so easy to make.
Tips:
Freeze uncooked chicken bones and when you accumulate sufficient bones, make a bone broth.
Use the entire carcass of a whole rotisserie chicken plus the skin and the gelatinous chicken juice found on the container for the broth base.
When you've made a large pot of chicken broth, freeze portion sizes in plastic containers that can be defrosted as needed.
Use bones, skin and all for chicken bone broth.
I use a pressure cooker or Instant Pot. Otherwise, it takes a long time to boil the broth and you end up losing a lot of liquid
See the layer of oil after cooking the bone broth?
Because most rotisserie chickens have their flavor in the skin, this is what gives your bone broth its taste. However, the skin has a lot of fat so you would want to cool the broth, preferably overnight in the refrigerator, until the fat congeals. Once the fat has congealed, use a spoon and scrape away the fat layer on the top.
A good broth should be gelatinous because all the calcium has been leached out into the broth. Use this broth as a base for a delicious chicken vegetable soup or a Chinese chicken soup.
Cooled Chicken broth with fat layer
Chicken broth with fat layer skimmed.
CHICKEN BONE BROTH
Equipment
Ingredients
- Whole rotisserie chicken carcass. Skin, bones, gelatinous juice from container
- 950 ml water
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 bayleaf Add an interesting flavor. Optional
Instructions
- Place chicken carcass with skin and gelatinous juice into pressure cooker or pot
- Add salt
- Add water and cover
- Pressure cook for 30 minutes of simmer on very low heat for 1 hour.
Rotisserie chickens are a constant on my list when I go to Costco or Publix. It s the convenience factor. Put together a salad and pour some wine and voila, dinner is served. After every morsel of chicken is devoured or used in these enchiladas, chalupas, curried chicken salad or pasta salad, the bones and that residual wobbly gelatinous chicken goo get their time to shine and making chicken broth from scratch is a snap with some water and a few staples from the vegetable bin. Bonus: bone broth may be the key to youthful skin .