Broth. Hands down, this is one of the easiest things ANYONE could do in the kitchen. It is fool-proof. I have made this on a full on busy day when I had guests over for tea, was cooking for a sick friend AND had an exam in the next few days. This baby just sat on the stove and simmered away quietly without even a peep. I’m usually not a fan of ginger. But in broth… no holds barred! I’ve written out my most basic recipe in which I use just a handful of ingredients, but to be honest, it’s your call as to what you want to add to season your broth. It’s VERY difficult to mess broth up, so fear not! If the flavour is too strong, add more water! If you want a more concentrated broth, add more spices or cook the broth down some more. Add more garlic if you so fancy. Add in some other whole spices you like such as bay leaf or cloves. Throw in some vegetables. In the past I’ve added extra ginger and pepper to it for my husband who was sick a couple of weeks back. I usually add minimal or no salt to my broth if I’ll be using it to cook pilau rice as I just end up confused about adding extra salt to the rice and long story short it never ends up well. This time round I was preparing it for pilau rice, so I added no salt, however usually I will add salt to taste if I’m making it for anything else. The first step is to blanch the chicken bones. This step is VERY important if you are using chicken bones from chicken that was heavily spiced (as we South Asians do). In my case, I was using chicken I had cooked in peri-peri seasonings. Peri-peri seasoning is nice on chicken, but not nice in broth! A quick blanch helps release these spices out of the bones. If you have any skin or bits of chicken still left on the bone, leave them! Don’t worry, it all works to enhance the broth! All you do is the broth simer. And simmer. And simmer. I let my broth cook all day or about 8-12hrs, but I’ve heard of some people simmering their broth for a whopping full 24hrs! The longer you let it simmer, the more juices and flavour you get out of the bones. I would personally be too scared to let it simmer on the stove whilst I sleep, but if that’s what you like then more power to you! The uses for this are endless. You can sub out water and cook your rice and curries in this. Use this is base for soups. My personal favourite, because it’s just so darn easy, is to just drink it straight up as something to hold me over till dinner 🙂 Enjoy!
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