Bare vs. Bear

Bare Baby

Baby Bear

Bear Bearing a Bare Baby

If you didn't already know, I spent my first 2 years of college as a Secondary English Education major (fancy college speak for "I want to teach high school english"). I picked the major because I loved my junior high and high school english classes. Some of my favorite things were grammar and parts of speech. I don't claim to be an expert, and I make a lot of grammatical errors, but I love to learn the correct grammar for things in everyday life. I'm always correcting people's grammar in my mind - like using "good" instead of "well" i.e. the answer to "How are you doing?" should be "I'm doing well" - and try to write with the most correct grammar I know. In a post today while I was cooking and canning I wanted to use the phrase "bear with me" and realised I wasn't sure which "bear/bare" to use, so I looked it up! (this is how a lot of my grammar searches start)

I found this cute little post about the difference and just had to share it!

Enjoy =)

Bear vs. Bare

Chicken Foot Stock

Today I decided to try the chicken foot stock recipe I found online. The actual recipe can be found here, but I'll walk you through my version -

A couple weekends ago I processed some roosters and young chickens with a friend. She wasn't interested in the feet or the giblets so lucky me, I got to take the leftovers from all 6 chickens home with me. I made giblet gravy with the giblets in this post if you are interested. Now I only had 6 pairs of feet, but the recipe calls for 2lbs. Since this is an experiment for me, I really don't need the 2 quarts of stock the recipe makes, so I made a few improvisions using just what I had on hand.

• 2 pounds of chicken feet - to - 12 chicken feet (6 pairs of chicken feet)
• 2 large carrots, cut in half - to - 1 large carrot cut into thirds (fits better in my small pot)
• 1 onion, cut into wedges - to - 1/4 onion coarsely chopped (I don't love onion so I usually use a little less than called for any way) 
• 2 celery ribs, cut in half - to - OMITTED (didn't have any on hand) 
• 1 bunch of fresh thyme - to - 1/4 t dried thyme (can't wait to get started on a herb garden so I can use the fresh stuff!) 
• 1 bay leaf - to - OMITTED (alright I KNOW I have dried bay leaf somewhere but I couldn't find it) 
• 10 peppercorns - to - 4 peppercorns
• The leftover bones, fat, and skin from my 4 chickens after pressure cooking

Un-skinned chicken feet



   I peeled my chicken feet before storing to reduce dirt, but if you haven't ever peeled a chicken foot, it's pretty easy. After removing the feet from the chicken rinse well (I do this during processing). bring a pot of water not quite to boiling (around 140-145 degrees F if you have a thermometer handy) and drop your feet in the water and swish them around for 10-15 seconds. You don't want to cook the feet yet so only do this as long as it takes to loosen the skin from the feet. I start at the joint where the foot was removed, wrap my hand around the leg, grip gently and twist. You want to pull just the outer layer of scales off. This is usually enough to get me started so I have pieces to grab hold of so I can peel the rest of the skin toward the toes. As you get close to the the toes, grip the nail FIRMLY and twist, this should pop the nail covering right off leaving you with a tender red tipped toenail (this also works for spurs on rooster feet). By loosening the nail covering before peeling the skin off the toe, you can usually get it all off in one pull rather than have anything break off at the nail covering. And that's all there is to peeling a chicken foot! Here's a link to a stock recipe that has some good pictures of how to peel a chicken foot.

I put my 12 peeled feet into a pot and filled it with water to cover the feet. Bring to a boil and let it boil for 5 minutes. I dumped the feet in the sink and rinsed with cold water until they were cool enough to touch. I washed my pot while I waited.

Now if you aren't already a little squeamish about cooking chicken feet, here's where it could get gross. With a very sharp knife, cut the tips of each toe off the feet - this is supposed to help the gelatinous marrow escape into the stock during cooking. If you cut right at the joint the toe should pop right off. I found that my big tough rooster feet were a little more difficult. If you plan on doing this regularly I would have some large "kitchen only" wire cutters to make this go a lot quicker and be a lot safer for klutzy fingers... I may be investing in some down the line.

   Cutting off tips of a skinned chicken foot (don't forget that fourth toe!)

Now that my knife was out I peeled and chopped up my carrot and onion and tossed them, the feet, and my leftover bones, fat, and skin from the cooked chickens back into the clean pot with the thyme and enough water to cover. (don't forget to treat your carrot peels to your chickens!)

Bag of leftovers from pressure cooking

All in the stock pot

   

Bring the whole pot to a simmer and reduce to just barely simmering. Partially cover and let barely simmer overnight, ideally for 24-48 hours. Here's a nice little video of Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist showing the perfect stock simmer. 

This is where I had a hiccup. I was cooking the stock at my mom's house and left it to simmer overnight (with permission). During their dinner clean up the stove got turned off and wasn't discovered until morning. My mom turned it up to heat it up quickly again and it boiled for about an hour before I arrived. I decided to can it all anyway and see if anything good comes from it, if not, I'll just toss the whole batch and try again next time. 

So all the chunks have to be strained out. I started with a colander for the big pieces, and moved to a mesh strainer for the smaller stuff. The recipe suggests using a cheesecloth a few times and I will definitely do it next time, I didn't have one on hand so mine has some small silty gunk at the bottom. 

Your strained stock is all done! You can spoon it up into a container to keep in the fridge, or go on to can it like I did. Because of the cooking fluctuations I added some plain gelatin to 3 of the jars to see if that would help it gel. If simmered long enough at the right temperature your stock should gel wonderfully on it's own.

Giblet Gravy

While waiting for my Chicken Foot Stock, I also tried a giblet gravy. The recipe I started with can be found here, but I'll walk you through my version.

I wanted to use the giblets from all 6 chickens, and only used what I had on hand, so here's my modified ingredients list :

Makes about 1 cup - Made about 4 pints or 20 cups 

• 1 tablespoon butter - to - 5 T butter (I actually ended up using a stick and a half)
• 1 celery rib, chopped - to - OMITTED (didn't have any on hand) 
• 1 small carrot stick, chopped - to - 2 large carrots peeled and chopped into sticks (don't forget to give your carrot peels to your chickens as a treat!)
• 1/2 small onion, chopped - to - 3/4 medium onion coarsely chopped
• a couple cracks of pepper - to - 6 cracks pepper
• giblets from a roasting chicken -to - Giblets from all 6 chickens, I also added a few chicken wings that I didn't cook with the rest of the chickens
• couple sprigs thyme - to - 1/2 t dried thyme
• drippings from a roasted chicken - to - the very thick and rich broth left over from pressure cooking the chicken meat (got about 2.5 pints, but only used 1.5 for the gravy)
• 1 tablespoon flour - to - 5 T flour (I actually ended up using about 15 T) 

I sauteed my carrots and onions in my butter for a few minutes until my onions were softening and turning brown around the edges. I added all my giblets, wings, pepper, and thyme and covered with water. Brought the pot to a boil and reduced to a simmer for 1 hour. 

Strain the broth into a bowl, separate the giblets and set aside, and the rest can go to the compost pile (you CAN feed these leftovers to your chickens, but remember they can make the eggs taste like onion. And just a reminder, onions are poisonous to dogs, cats, and many other domestic animals. Here's a quick tip to composting onions).

Pull as much meat off the neck(s) as possible - I may really suck at this, it looked like there was a lot of meat to pull off, but I couldn't get much of it to separate, some were easier than others though, maybe you will have better luck? Finely chop the giblets and neck meat. I tossed the neck bones and wings into the chicken feet stock pot, but if you aren't making the stock as well you can just throw those out. 

In lieu of roast chicken drippings, I poured my thick broth from the pressure cooking into a large pan and heated it up on medium heat. 

For cleaner looking jars (these have hard water stains), 

add a tablespoon of vinegar to your canning water

While you wait, make a roux (pronounced "roo" like kangaroo). If you haven't done this before, bear with me, this is my first time too. 

Add equal parts flour and butter to small frying pan on medium heat. As the butter melts whisk them together into a lumpy paste. Let this cook for a couple minutes, stirring as you go, while you move on. (if you want some more information on making and using a roux, here is where I got my information)

Too runny, added more flour

Just right!

          

Add your chopped giblets and neck meat to the heated drippings (broth for me) and saute for a couple minutes. Add your roux and broth (you strained and set aside),1/4 C at a time as the gravy cooks until it reaches the desired consistency. I like my gravy super thick, so I ended up using about 15 T of flour and 10 T of butter in my roux - made gravy a bit bland and flour-y tasting, could have settled for about half the roux instead of the whole thing. I took out one pint of giblet broth and set it aside to can, and used the rest in my gravy with the additional pint and a half from cooking the chickens.

Roux added and whisked in well

Broth added

I canned all my giblet gravy and got 4 pints.

It's not as flavorful as I was hoping, but I'm sure that's from the massive amount of flour lol. It's super thick though, so when I open it up I may just add a little more chicken broth or a scoop of my chicken foot stock for some more chicken flavor. 

Pressure Cooking Rooster Meat

I recently learned to process my own roosters. Once they were all cleaned up and ready to be cooked, I pressure cooked them (to make the tough rooster meat a little less tough) and canned the meat and broth. I gave a few jars away and made a couple hamburger helpers and a batch of enchiladas with the ones I kept. I also found a great "Rooster Soup" recipe on Back Yard Chickens that I hope to try soon.

A friend of mine who is new to chickens asked if I would teach her family how to process their roosters. We ended up buying 4 juvenile chickens from the feed store and I brought my two full grown roosters that will soon be replaced by the young BLRW's that are growing fast. I took home my 2 boys and 2 of the juveniles.

So today I am pressure cooking the meat - makes the meat just fall right off the bones, and holy cow does it smell delicious - and canning the meat and broth. This time I decided to save all the precious giblets from all 6 birds (my friend didn't want them, she may be sorry later =P) and have decided to make something delicious from them. I picked out a giblet gravy recipe and a chicken foot stock recipe and am going to try canning both and see how well that works.

After processing I put my roosters in gallon zip locks with brine for a few days until I was ready to cook them. With the canning rack still in the bottom of the pressure cooker, fill with water to the canning line. I tossed all 4 guys in to cook at once, this is the most I've cooked all together and it turned out great. You don't want to fill your cooker more than 2/3 full, so how many you can cook at once will depend on the size of your cooker, but check the directions that come with your cooker too just to be safe. We had some trouble getting all the feathers off the smaller guys, so rather than worry about feathers in my broth, I just took the skin off the two smaller ones. 

My pressure cooker's directions say to cook at 15psi for 1 hour. So I locked on my, turned on my burner, and waited for the cooker to reach 15psi. Then I set a timer for an hour and moved on to preparing my jars. You can heat up your water to boiling before adding the chicken (while you get your chickens ready maybe), that helps get up to pressure quicker once you lock on your lid.

Last time I used regular mouth jars, so this time I am trying wide mouth. I have 12 wide mouth and some left over regular mouth. I pulled all the jars out and removed their lids and rings. If your jars aren't new like mine, don't forget to use new lids, the seal around the lid is no good after it's been used once.

My grandma taught me to sterilize my jars and lids with boiling water. I don't know if this is the best way to go about it, so you can use any method you like, this is just what I prefer. 

I fill a large frying pan with enough water to cover halfway up the threads on my jars and boil. I place the jars upside down in the boiling water and let it boil for about 5 minutes. 

while my jars boil, I wash all my lids really well with soap and water, and set aside.

After the jars are done boiling they go upside down on a clean dish towel to dry and cool. When all my jars have been sterilized, I pour the leftover boiling water over my bowl of lids *I have been told this can melt the seal on the lids and prevent them from sealing correctly, I feel better having boiled the lids, but this is just how I was taught and is up to you*

My rooster timer has gone off, follow the cooling instructions for your canner, but I turn off the burner, move the cooker to a cool burner, and let it cool and release pressure on it's own. Follow your cooker's instructions for when to unlock and remove the lid.

Meat falling right off the bones

I dump the contents of the whole cooker into a colander in a stockpot (in the sink, I'm a spiller lol). While I let the broth drain into the stockpot, I start putting the meat in my jars. I like to just pull it off the bones with my fingers and pack it in the jars until they are full, about an inch from the top. The skin, fat, and bones all get separated out and put in a gallon zip lock to be used for stock later.
Wipe the rims of any messy jars clean with a clean wet rag and put your sterile lids and rings on. I just screw the rings on gently, and tighten them later.

Wash out your cooker really well with soap and water. Once your cooker and rack are all clean, fill it to your directed canning line. To help with hard water stains on your jars, you can can a tablespoon of vinegar. Place your jars on the rack and lock up your canner. My directions say to can at 15psi for 10 minutes.