Which parts of a chicken are used to make chicken soup?

Question

I boiled a chicken legs for over 2 hours in low temperature. The soup is yellow and with very soft chicken. It tastes very good after adding some salt. Which part of chicken is the most appropriate for doing a soup? I am looking for the lowest cost option.

Answer

The lowest-cost option is definitely bones, assuming you don't actually need or want pieces of meat in the soup.

When I say bones I'm referring to the parts that are normally thrown out as waste products, especially the necks, feet, and carcasses. If you can't find them at a supermarket, talk to a butcher. They are sold for next to nothing - usually less than $1/kg, sometimes as low as $0.50/kg. That is even less than the per-unit cost of a whole chicken. Some butchers (no promises!) will even give them away for free, or at least haggle a little bit, especially if their business is small.

You can roast these and simmer (not boil) them over a period of several hours to produce a very rich stock. Usually you would do this with a mirepoix and/or bouquet garni for flavour. When it's done, you strain it, and then add fresh or frozen vegetables, noodles, etc., to stretch it into a full meal or at least a hearty soup.

If I really wanted meat in the soup, I'd opt for thighs, as they are inexpensive and (once butchered) you can throw the bones in with the rest.

Other than pure bones, the "budget" option for chicken is almost always the whole chicken, if you can use it all. That means doing your own boning and butchering, then using the bones and trimmings for stock/soup and finding ways to use the offal (combs, hearts, livers, etc.) The offal really isn't any good in soup, so if you just want chicken soup, then stick to just bones and one inexpensive cut (over here it's thighs, but this may vary by location).

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How to pick a good mango at a local store?

Question

Simply just like the title says. I LOVE mango. But the thing is I don't know how to pick a good one at the local store. I read some tips somewhere from Googling (long time ago, I don't remember its exact url) said to smell it, but I'm not sure what smell should the good mango have? My family and I often must wait for our mangoes in the fridge for more than 5 days just to make sure that they're ready to serve.

Advice? Help? Thanks!

Answer

In the fridge? Keep the mangos out of the fridge and they'll ripen faster, and taste better. The smell should remind you of a delicious mango. :) (No other way to describe it, really)

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What flavour can cut through salt?

Question

I'm putting together an asian sauce to throw over some steamed greens & have made it a bit too salty (it contains soy, fish & oyster sauce).

What can I add to cut back the saltiness?

Answer

The classic way to compensate for saltiness (especially in Asian cuisine) is to add something sweet (usually sugar), which tricks one's taste-buds into thinking that the food is both less salty and less sweet. (Ever wonder why a can of cola has 45+ mg of sodium? It's there partially to mask all the sweetness which gives you a sugar rush, and simultaneously make you thirstier!) I seem to recall reading a section on this phenomenon in On Food and Cooking, but my copy is back home. I'll try and post an excerpt later today. Update #2: I can't seem to find any mention of saltiness inhibitors in OFaC, however, there is a section on sweetness inhibitors (cf. page 663) so I must have been confusing it with that.

Update #1: I haven't gotten a chance to look at OFaC yet, however, I did find this study:

• An overview of binary taste–taste interactions by Keast and Breslin. Journal of Food Quality and Preference, 14 (2) 111–124. March, 2003. Elsevier.

It is a survey of research on both perceived and chemical reactions between different tastes.

When compounds eliciting tastes are mixed many outcomes are possible, including perceptual enhancement and suppression, unmasking of a taste not initially observed, or possibly chemical synthesis of a new taste.

The survey notes (see Sections 3.2 and 3.3):

At medium and high intensities/concentrations sweetness was generally suppressive of other basic tastes.

and also

Sweetness suppressed salty taste at moderate intensities.

It goes on to note that at even higher concentrations sweetness and other tastes are symmetrically suppressive (i.e., their tastes cancel each other out).

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Can you make chocolate from coffee beans or coffee from cacao beans?

Question

Coffee and cacao beans have some properties in common. I'm wondering can you make something akin to chocolate from a coffee bean or something like coffee from a cacao bean?

"Brewed Chocolate" seems like a no-brainer. In fact, I found this brand which makes it. http://www.drinkchoffy.com/

Making a solid candy from coffee beans seems a little more iffy. But would this theoretically be possible by crushing the roasted beans (coffee liquor) and extracting the oils (coffee butter) and mixing with the milk and sugar and other usual ingredients?

Answer

You don't need a brand for brewed chocolate. You just take cocoa powder (which is ground cocoa beans minus most of their fat) and put it into boiling water. You don't even need to strain. But I prefer to make mine with milk (btw, I sometimes brew coffee in milk too).

Solid candy from coffee is something else. What you call "coffee butter" is, in fact, coffee oil at room temperature. I can't find information about the breakdown of the coffee beans, but I am not sure if they have the starch content of cocoa beans (which helps hold a chocolate bar together). Add to this the potential for a heart attack inducing amount of caffeine per bar of caffeeolate and you see why this isn't commonplace.

I guess that the industry today would find ways around these problems. You can hydrogenize the oil (although I don't think it would attain the smooth texture of tempered chocolate, chocolate butter has some very special crystallization properties which allow a chocolate bar to have a silky but hard texture. It will be just grainy) and you can decaffeinate the whole thing, and then mix it with some starch to thicken it, and as much sugar as there is in milk chocolate to counter the higher bitterness of coffee.

But this will be as distant from real rich-flavoured coffee as 39 cent discounter chocolate bars are from real chocolate. There won't be an equivalent of premium dark chocolate (which is the one that tastes of cocoa beans instead of sugar).

If you love coffee so much that you want to try a coffeeolate bar, you are better off making coffee flavoured chocolate. If you want the least taste mix, start with a white chocolate bar. The easiest way would be to melt it and mix in a very small amount of cream with lots of instant coffee solved into it, but the taste will be bound by the instant coffee quality. The other way would be to brew the coffee powder in cream, very concentrated (more than an espresso) and add it to the melted chocolate. You'll have to work at chocolate candy making temperatures (30°C to 32°C), if you overheat, you'll have to retemper the chocolate.

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How to use Bones in Soups?

Question

I have now a pile of chicken bones and I have heard they can be useful in making some food. How should I preserve them and where can I use them? Should I cut them into pieces and throw them into a new soup? What is their purpose in the soup? Flavor or something else? I am always looking for ways to cut my costs so any budget-cooking ideas welcomed!

I will outline here ways how I can cut my costs with bones:

1. According to Wikipedia, bones are a good source of calcium with acid boiling:

A study determined that "prolonged cooking of a bone in soup increases the calcium content of the soup when cooked at an acidic, but not at a neutral pH".

so putting some acid there (lemon juice or something else?) I can cut my milk costs, sounds great.

1. more ideas like this? How should the internals be handled?

Answer

Notice how dogs enjoy gnawing on bones? Ever been to a restaurant where they serve bone marrow?

Boiling bones in water draws flavor out of them. Most canned broth and stock you buy--beef stock, chicken stock, etc--is just this--water boiled with bones for hours.

Most literature I've read suggests using raw bones, but some recipes call for roasted bones--the ones I've seen most often involve roasted veal bones.

With all that said, I have to disagree with rumtscho. I have made stock from roasted chicken bones. The stock does still take on flavor. I'll half-agree with him: it's easier to get good flavor from raw bones.

Additionally, I've found another pitfall. I've tried to make stock from the leftover bones of bbq'd ribs. This was not a good idea. The broth had a savory flavor, as intended. Unfortunately it also had the background taste of bbq sauce. Now, when I do make stocks, I'd consider using leftover bones, but

• there have to be enough bones leftover (otherwise I get very little stock for my time or it's weak on flavor)
• the bones can't be "tainted" by other flavors (like bbq sauce)

To answer your original question, try this:

• start with a pot of plain water
• put about 4 lb of bones in per gallon of water while it's still cold, add ~1 tsp of vinegar per gallon of water
• Once the water comes to a boil, lower the heat so that it's just simmering
  • this keeps the stock from getting cloudy/white (which doesn't taste bad, just looks worse)
• leave boiling for about 6-8 hours, minimum. Longer is fine, but you won't get too much more at this point.
• turn off heat, allow stock to cool fully, strain it for the bones, refrigerate
  • you can speed up this step by putting the pot in a sink full of cool water
  • do NOT put a hot pot in your fridge. It will heat up the fridge significantly and just make the food in there go bad.

Use this to

• make soups
• make sauces (reduce it first)
• as a substitute for water in savory dish preparations (i.e. make rice with stock instead of water. Be creative here)

The main benefits here are flavor and nutrients, but I just do it for the flavor. Cutting bones up does improve the extraction process, but if the marrow is exposed already (most beef/veal bones will be) you're fine. If you save old bones, freeze them until you have enough. Don't bother trying to make stock with the bones from one chicken.

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Which Parts of Chicken to Do a Chicken Soup?

Question

I boiled a chicken legs for over 2 hours in low temperature. The soup is yellow and with very soft chicken. It tastes very good after adding some salt. Which part of chicken is the most appropriate for doing a soup? I am looking for the lowest cost option.

Answer

The lowest-cost option is definitely bones, assuming you don't actually need or want pieces of meat in the soup.

When I say bones I'm referring to the parts that are normally thrown out as waste products, especially the necks, feet, and carcasses. If you can't find them at a supermarket, talk to a butcher. They are sold for next to nothing - usually less than $1/kg, sometimes as low as $0.50/kg. That is even less than the per-unit cost of a whole chicken. Some butchers (no promises!) will even give them away for free, or at least haggle a little bit, especially if their business is small.

You can roast these and simmer (not boil) them over a period of several hours to produce a very rich stock. Usually you would do this with a mirepoix and/or bouquet garni for flavour. When it's done, you strain it, and then add fresh or frozen vegetables, noodles, etc., to stretch it into a full meal or at least a hearty soup.

If I really wanted meat in the soup, I'd opt for thighs, as they are inexpensive and (once butchered) you can throw the bones in with the rest.

Other than pure bones, the "budget" option for chicken is almost always the whole chicken, if you can use it all. That means doing your own boning and butchering, then using the bones and trimmings for stock/soup and finding ways to use the offal (combs, hearts, livers, etc.) The offal really isn't any good in soup, so if you just want chicken soup, then stick to just bones and one inexpensive cut (over here it's thighs, but this may vary by location).

Check more discussion of this question.

Gelpro Mats - do they work?

Question

This might not be the right forum for this question, so feel free to remove this question if it is. We have super-hard tile floors in the kitchen, and after an hour or two of cooking my feet are KILLING me. I've been thinking about getting commercial-grade anti-fatigue mats, but they are so ugly.

Does anyone out there have the Gelpro mats, and do they actually do what they say they do? I've had many 'anti-fatigue' mats in the past that have done nothing to ease my aching feet.

Answer

I find a pair of basic Crocs to be very efficient as kitchen clogs. (As does Mr. Batali, though the orange color may be in questionable taste). They are well cushioned, reasonably priced, and easily cleaned. They won't provide a ton of protection against dropping something heavy, sharp or hot, though they do sell some upscale models that provide more.

If you really want a mat, these Wellness Mats are superbly cushioned.

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