I recently made a pot of chicken stock and I felt it was very plain and didn’t have any of the things that made a rich hearty stock/broth.

Stock is a liquid flavored with meat, vegetables, and spices.

Broth is a stock that includes bones as one of the ingredients.

I started off with a plain rotisserie chicken and five large drumsticks, two sticks of celery, and two large carrots chopped roughly. I roasted the drumsticks in a low oven. I put all the chicken vegetables in an Instant Pot with enough cold, filtered water to cover the chicken pieces and used the slow cooker mode on low heat setting for 8 hours.

It was very bland. I didn’t use onions or garlic because I made this batch for one of our cats and those two ingredients are toxic to cats. the onions will come up later.

Things I did do and why they’re important:

• Cold Water, I’ve heard this from a number of chefs to use cold water because water that’s gone through a water heater might have metal particles or sediment from the heater in it which will affect the taste.
• Filtered Water, we use a water filter to eliminate the chlorine smell from our otherwise clean public water utility. Cats are extremely susceptible to urinary tract infections so we’ve had them on filtered water for as long as we’ve had them and no UTIs.
• Roasted chicken, roasting or grilling meat, and skin renders fat and creates flavor compounds on the skin through the Maillard reaction which gives grilled meats, coffee, and toast their flavor. The slow roasting also evaporates some moisture from the meat concentrating the flavors.

Things a lot of people might use that I left out on purpose:

• Salt, I like to control the amount of salt in my recipes, putting it in the initial batch of stock/broth takes away your ability to control the amount of salt later on. Culinary and low sodium stock might help here if they didn’t have onions.
• Onions, members of the Lily family are toxic to cats.
• Bay Leaf, can also be toxic to cats.
• Bullion, most billions include onions, if not both onions and garlic. Better than Bullion has a “Roast Beef” flavor that doesn’t seem to include onions, the regular chicken, beef, and mushroom stocks all do.
• Peppercorns, like salt I like to add pepper later, whole peppercorns contain piperine which is a flavor-enhancing oil that degrades over time this is why fresh ground pepper tastes better than pre-ground.
• Stock, why not just buy broth, most stocks and broths sold in the store contain onions if not garlic. We’ve tried a few stocks made for cats and she doesn’t like most of them.

So if I did all these things why does my stock still suck? What else can I try to make it better? We’re going to have ingredients and techniques here from Eastern and Western cooking styles.

Techniques

• Bloom spices in oil, this technique is common in Indian cooking, the spices open up with the oil and heat. The oil may also help fat-soluble spices move around the dish.
• Pressure cooker, instead of using the slow cooker, a pressure cooker will not only break down cartridge, collagen, and connective tissue faster than a slow cooker, but the pressure will also penetrate the bones and leach out marrow and nutrients into the stock/broth.
• Roast the vegetables, for the same reason you roast the meats, you can also roast the vegetables to create a richer flavor with those Maillard reaction flavor compounds.
• Slow roasting at a higher heat, I wanted to render the fat using low 250°F heat, but some folks might use a higher heat of 300°F to 400°F to get better work in a short amount of time. The skin might get crispier, I believe I tented it in foil to keep it from getting too burnt.

Animal Products

• Anchovies, dried anchovies used to add umami.
• Bonito Flakes, these flakes are grated from a dried piece of the Bonito fish and are a traditional ingredient in Japanese cuisine. Being fish, bonito flakes are recommended to add concentrated flavor to food for cats.
• Chicken Fat, fats are good to add some richness to a broth, and they also help move fat-soluble vitamins and minerals around. I looked into two different brands of Chicken Shmaltz and was unable to use them due to their inclusion of dried onions in their formula. Epic makes a jar of rendered chicken fat that does not include onions.
• Chicken Necks and backs, the rotisserie chicken had its back intact, but didn’t come with a neck, liver, or giblets like a fresh or frozen chicken might have.
• Chicken Wings, the wingtips contain more cartridge, collagen, and connective tissue than other parts of the chicken. These used to be super cheap before the invention of buffalo wings.
• Dark Meat, the dark meat of a chicken has more flavor than breast meat which is why dark meat is traditionally used in soups. The slow-twitch muscle in dark meat also holds up better to long cooking times used in soups. The dark meat contains more myoglobin which contains iron.
• Katsuobushi (Japanese: 鰹節) is simmered, smoked, and fermented skipjack tuna, bonito are the cheaper alternative. Katsuobushi comes in thin or thick strips and pink or gold colors. The thin strips make good garnish, the thick strips are better for broth.
• Pancetta, a cured Italian ham or pork rendered for its fat, is used in European cooking, substitute bacon if you don’t have pancetta.
• Smoked meat, some people add smoked turkey necks and wings to their stock pots to add more flavor than plain chicken pieces.

Dairy Products

I had no idea I was going to need this section until I saw Emmy make Shin Ramen noodles with Cream Cheese in the broth.

• Butter
• Cream Cheese
• Ghee is clarified butter with the milk solids removed this gives it a higher smoke point than regular butter.
• Parmesan Cheese, the good stuff comes in huge wheels, you can grate parm into all kinds of dishes for richness and umami, when you’re down to the rind, you can use that to add extra flavor to a broth, stock, or soup. Chefs will keep a bag of parmesan rinds in their freezer.

Vegetables and other Produce

• Dashi is a stock used in many Japanese soups and other dishes, we’re going to try some of the ingredients (Kombu, Shittake, Anchovies, Bonito flakes) traditionally used to make Dashi to make our stock more interesting.
• Fermented Bean Paste, fermented black bean paste.
• Galangal, a relative of ginger
• Garlic paste has a different texture than minced garlic and is more convenient than pressing from fresh.
• Garlic powder, often used in higher heat applications powder does not burn as easily as fresh garlic.
• Ginger paste is more convenient than peeling and grating ginger, a staple of Indian cooking. Ginger is often used in Asian cooking.
• Gochujang, fermented pepper paste.
• Green chili flakes?
• Kombu is dried edible kelp used in Japanese cuisine.
• Leeks, some folks replace the onions with leeks for a different take on broth. I made a roasted bone broth with marrow bones and split leeks in 2015 that was all marrow and very little else.
• Mirepoix is a traditional French mixture of one part carrot, one part celery, and two parts onion sauteed in the pan before building the stock.
• Miso pastes, Shiro miso
• Nori is dried edible seaweed used in Japanese cuisine.
• Paprika?
• Peppercorns, both the normal kind and Sichuan
• Scallions or Green Onions, different recipes call for the green tops and others call for the white root end.
• Shallots, like Red and Yellow onions different types have different flavors, so the little purple bulbs have their own flavor.
• Shittake Mushrooms are often dried to concentrate their flavor, these mushrooms can add a meaty or earthy flavor to a dish.
• Sugar, used in Asian and European cooking, I’m constantly surprised when I see sugar going into Asian sauces.
• Trinity is the Cajun and Creole variant of Mirepoix, one part celery, one part green bell pepper, and two parts onion.

Sauces

• Dumpling Dipping Sauce is a mix of Tamari and vinegar with garlic and other spices.
• Fish Sauce, a relative of Worcestershire Sauce, is made by fermenting fish such as anchovies, and or krill with salt, into a sauce.
• Hoisin Sauce is one of the main components in brown sauce and is fantastic on Moo Shu pancakes.
• Liquid Aminos, started by a health food store owner is a Soy sauce substitute that uses organic soybeans and does not ferment the beans to produce the amino acids. I’ve seen this recommended for cats.
• Oyster Sauce, is made from oysters, salt, and sugar.
• Soy sauce, fermented soybeans, wheat, and salt, comes in sweet and other varieties.
• Tamari is a fermented soy-based sauce that does not contain wheat like Soy sauce.
• Toasted Sesame Oil, is an oil made from pressing toasted sesame seeds.

Alcohol

• Mirin is a rice wine like Sake, but with more sugar and less alcohol.
• Sake is a Japanese rice wine sometimes used in cooking.
• Shaoxing wine is Chinese cooking wine made from rice close to Sake with a stronger flavor.
• Soju, colorless Korean alcohol made from rice.

Vinegar and other Acids

• Apple Cider Vinegar,
• Balsamic Vinegar is an aged vinegar made from grape juice kept in wooden barrels.
• Black Vinegar is an aged vinegar made from whole steamed grains kept in clay pots.
• Distilled White Vinegar has about 5% acidity, and this vinegar is often used in cooking, cleaning, and pickling.
• Lime Juice, the Vietnamese use limes as a condiment for Pho.
• Malt Vinegar is used in European cooking.
• Red Wine Vinegar
• Rice vinegar is vinegar made from rice used in Asian cooking.
• Sherry Vinegar is an aged vinegar made from Sherry used in Spanish and French cooking.
• Tarragon Vinegar adds the herb tarragon to vinegar, is used in European cooking, and pairs well with greens.
• Umeboshi vinegar or Ume plum vinegar is a Japanese vinegar made from umeboshi and shiso leaves. It has a fruity and tart flavor.
• Vinegar is supposed to help break down the bones in the stock/broth pot and dissolve calcium in the bones and release it into the liquid.
• White Balsamic Vinegar, vinegar with grape must
• White Wine Vinegar

Bone Broth 2.0

I roasted the chicken wings at 400°F for one hour,

I then put the chicken, 2 carrots, 1 teaspoon of white vinegar, and water to cover in a slow cooker for 15 hours.

I did not have any celery at the time. I poured off all the golden fat and collagen from the baking sheet into a container.

Twelve hours into the slow cook, the broth was perfectly clear

I decided that I needed to add the pan drippings back into the pot. In more traditional soup making the pan drippings would be used to sautee the vegetables and everything would go into the pot. So separating them wasn’t helpful to the end goal.

At fifteen hours the stock smelled good, but it clearly wasn’t what I was looking for. I had a delivery bring me some diced celery and I put that into the pot. I changed the Instant Pot to Pressure Cooker mode and ran it at high pressure for 2 hours. The resulting stock was brown, tasted good to me and the cat devoured it when I put it on her food. She wouldn’t drink it by itself. I would drink this stock on its own. I poured the broth through a fine-mesh strainer and put up 2 large containers of stock and froze some large ice cubes as well. It’s worth noting at this point I have not added any salt to this broth.

From here on out I’d like to take small batches of this stock and add some of the sauces I listed above either by themselves or in combinations taken from Ramen, Pho, and other traditional recipes.

If you have any feedback about this post please feel free to contact me.

Paul

Evilrobotgames at Gmail.com