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.