Traditional bone broth, made with water, bones, meat and
vegetables simmered together, is becoming the trendiest new health food since
smoothies came along. When I read in a recent TIME article that there’s even a bone-broth
boutique in (where else) New York City, it just goes to show: everything old is
new again.
Whether the focus on meat is an offshoot of the Paleo diet,
or extra cold winter weather has created a fresh appreciation for soup, I think
homemade broth is a great cure for the mid-winter blahs. Here at Berryridge Farm, I’ve been on a real soup kick
lately. While I’m not a big meat eater, I always make my soups with homemade poultry
broth. Lots of recipes start with bones and uncooked meat (the TIME article
included a recipe for chicken broth, using both) but for me, it’s easiest to use
the carcass of a roasted chicken or turkey.
I roasted a 15-pound turkey for
our New Year’s dinner, and did something a bit different this time. While I
have long stuffed the bird cavity with onion and sprigs of sage and thyme from
the garden, I took a chance and followed the suggestion of my sister Patricia,
a splendid cook and baker (you can find her at www.comfortdish.blogspot.com). I
rubbed the outside of the bird with olive oil and lots of herbs and spices
before roasting as usual.
My homemade rub included not only Betty Crocker-approved salt and pepper, but loads of garlic
powder, cumin, chili powder and Italian seasoning. Once I got the bird rubbed
down, and set more sage leaves on the skin, I was like, with all these spices this bird is going to taste kinda…funky. But,
I figured, no guts, no glory, so I went with it.
The meat turned out to be more flavorful than any turkey I’d
ever roasted! Not at all over-seasoned. So I had high hopes for the broth. The
next day, after picking the bird nearly clean I stuffed the carcass into my big
Dutch oven, and filled the pot with water. After bringing the pot to a gentle
boil, I turned the burner down to its lowest setting for a 2 ½ hour simmer.
The broth smelled fabulous. I strained out the solids and as
soon as the broth had cooled, I stuck it in the fridge for soup making the next
day. While John and I are as health conscious as any other Boomers, I did
something entirely unprecedented: I used the broth without skimming off the thin layer of fat
that had solidified on top.
My basic recipe: (amounts and prep are up to you)
Saute chopped onion, celery, peeled carrots and parsnips and
fresh garlic in lots of olive until they start to get soft. If I have kale I cut it up that too (don’t use the tough center
ribs). The soup is extra yummo if you do one additional step: Chop some
potatoes (I use Yukon gold taters from the garden) and peeled sweet potatoes
and roast them in the oven with a little olive oil until tender.
Next, pour in your homemade broth. Add a good quantity of
cut-up turkey and a half cup of French lentils and bring the pot to a simmer
for at least another half hour.
If I want a brothy soup, I precook the lentils. For a more
stew-like dish, you can do as above. Because the roasted potatoes are likely to fall apart in
the soup if you simmer them too long, I wait to add them until the last 10
minutes of cooking.
My fat-rich soup was hands-down, the absolute best soup I
have ever made. The extra fat makes the soup far more filling and satisfying
than any low-fat broth. Given the cozy
feeling and all-around sense of well-being you get from homemade soup, it seems
to me a little turkey fat has to be good for you...especially now that
How I regret all those years I bought into the “saturated
fat will kill you” mindset and ate margarine—margarine!—instead of butter! So in the spirit of being okay with wholesome fats in real
food, I hope you’ll use full fat homemade broth in your next soup recipe…and I’d
love to know how it turned out!
