Superior broth

Recipe Categories : | Chinese |

Ingredients :

• 2 lb chicken or chicken pieces
• 2 lb pork shoulder
• 2 lb pork bone
• 1 lb smoked pork or ham bone
• 10 cups water
• 1 tbsp chopped onion
• 1 tspn chopped fresh ginger root
• 1 tbsp soy sauce

Preparation and Cooking Instructions

1. Remove the breast meat and the drumsticks from the chicken. Boil the remainder with the shoulder of pork and bones in the water or water to cover for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, finely chop the meat from the chicken breast and drumsticks, keeping the light and dark meat separate, and set aside.
2. Skim the broth. Lift out the chicken, pork and bones. Place them in a bowl with 5 cups cold water. Pour half of this water into the broth. The coolness coagulates the grease and impurities, making them easier to remove. Skim. Pour a quarter of the broth into another bowl to cool. This cooling broth will be used as the bowl of cold water was used earlier. Return the chicken, pork and bones to the broth. Simmer the mixture for 1 hour. The simmering should now be gentle throughout the process. It is important not to allow the broth to reach full boil at any time as this will create a "stewed" instead of a "clear" broth. After 1 hour, remove the chicken, pork and bones and place in the remaining cold water. Add the cooling broth to the pan, thus again coagulating more grease and impurities, which are once again removed. This process is repeated another two to three times until the broth becomes strong and pure.
3. In the final phase, add the onion, root ginger and soy sauce to the broth. The chopped chicken meats are used as the final clarifiers. The dark meat from the drumsticks is the first clarifier and the white meat is second. In each case, the chopped chicken is simmered in the broth for about 10 minutes. Then the broth is strained through a sieve and the meat, onion and root ginger discarded. The broth will keep for 3-4 days in the refrigerator. For making larger quantities, a duck may be added for every two chickens, but ONLY chicken meat should be used for clarifying.