What bones are used to make broth? How to prepare the bones for making broth?

We all know that broth is a common soup ingredient. It can be used to make a variety of delicacies. Many people will make broth at home. Broth is usually made with pork bones and chicken bones, which usually need to be processed before boiling. So how to process the bones for broth? Let's take a closer look!

How to deal with bones for making soup

1. Treatment of bones before production

① [Soak to remove blood]: Freshly bought bones will have a lot of blood on the surface or inside, which is one of the sources of fishy smell. Cut the bones into large pieces first, then soak them in clean water. Add a small amount of water and soak for two hours to drain the blood from the bones. Change the water frequently during the soaking process until the water becomes clear. Then proceed to the next step. —— (Adding a little white vinegar can soften the ingredients to make it easier to drain the blood)

②【Blanching bones】: After soaking, some blood has been removed from the bones, but the remaining blood needs to be blanched. Put the bones in cold water and add pepper, cooking wine (high-proof wine for beef and mutton bones), and ginger. Blanch them in cold water for 5 minutes. During the cooking process, more foam will appear. These white foams are the blood that cannot be discharged from the bones. Putting the bones in cold water can slowly precipitate the blood in the bones. Do not boil the water before putting the bones in, because the pores on the surface of the food will shrink instantly when it encounters high temperature, so the blood cannot be discharged, which will eventually affect the taste of the stock. Take out the blanched bones and then clean them. Completely wash off the floating residue on the surface of the bones before proceeding to the next step.

2. Processing of bones during production

The deodorization treatment of bones before cooking only removes part of the odor. Some ingredients have a fishy smell due to their own characteristics and cannot be removed. For example, fish is a very fishy ingredient. If you want to remove the fishy smell, you can only add some deodorizing materials to cover the fishy smell. The same is true for making bone broth. If you want to cover the odor in the broth, you can only add deodorizing materials to cover it. When making pork bone broth, as long as you add ginger and green onions, the taste is already very good, because the odor of ingredients such as pork bones is not that strong, you only need to add ginger to remove the fishy smell and season it.

Some ingredients such as beef bones and mutton bones have their own strong odors, so the materials added to them are different from those for pork bones. If you want to dilute these odors, in addition to ginger, you can also add spices to the broth: tangerine peel, white peppercorns, and angelica. These three are more suitable for adding to beef bone and mutton bone broth. You only need to add one of them, and the amount added should not be too much, otherwise it is easy to mix the flavors.

In addition to the three spices mentioned above, there is another indispensable ingredient when cooking beef and mutton bones, and that is white radish. Adding white radish plays a key role in making beef and mutton bone broth. White radish not only makes the soup taste better, but also has an adsorption effect, which can absorb the fishy smell in the soup, so that the beef or mutton bone broth will taste better. The amount of white radish added should not be too much (50 kilograms of water plus two kilograms of white radish). Adding too much will make the broth have a strong radish flavor. It is recommended to peel the white radish and add the whole piece and cook for an hour.

What bones are used to make soup?

Stewing soup stock is usually made with chicken or big bones. Use cold water to cover the food inside. Add cooking wine to remove the fishy smell. It is best not to add seasonings with strong flavors such as onion and ginger, which will cover the original flavor of the soup stock. After boiling the water, skim off the foam, and then use low heat to stew until the bones are crispy and the meat is tender, then turn off the heat. Then drain the soup, let it cool, and remove the layer of oil solidified on the top, and you can make a refreshing and delicious soup stock.

What are the requirements for making soup stock?

1. Do not add salt in advance when making broth. Salt must be added at the end. If salt is added in advance, the protein in the ingredients will coagulate prematurely, and the flavor of the bones will not come out, ultimately resulting in the broth not being rich enough.

2. Adding bones when making broth can make the soup more concentrated and fragrant, but bones alone are not enough. The broth also needs to have umami flavor, and old hens or chicken skeletons are very good ingredients. The combination of them will make the taste more fresh and fragrant. The ingredients added to the broth can be summarized in one sentence: "Broil is not thick without bones, is not fresh without chicken, is not fragrant without duck, and is not thick without skin." The purpose of making broth is to match the required broth with the required ingredients to enrich the taste.

3. When making broth, do not add some heavy spices (star anise, bay leaves, cinnamon, cardamom, etc.). Although these spices are fragrant, they have a strong taste. If you don’t control the amount well, the broth will easily become bitter, affecting the taste of the whole pot of broth. Moreover, adding these spices will make the color of the broth darker, so do not add these spices with strong flavors.

4. Controlling the heat when making soup is critical, as it directly affects whether the soup has a rich flavor. If the heat is too high, the soup will evaporate easily. Generally, it is sufficient to control the heat so that the soup can roll. The soup will have a thick white color and a mellow taste. This kind of soup is called "thick soup." If you are making clear soup, the heat control is different. Clear soup relies on long-term slow cooking to bring out its flavor. The soup surface should not roll too much (it seems to be neither boiling nor not boiling). Simmer on low heat for 6 hours. The soup will be clear and bright, but not lacking in flavor. This kind of soup is also more popular. The most commonly used is beef bone clear soup.

5. Many businesses think that the cost of a pot of stock is very high. For a large pot of bones, in fact, some bones in it can be boiled many times (usually replaced three times). If the taste is not strong enough, new bones can be added and recycled to reduce expenses. Some soft ingredients such as chicken skeletons and old hens will become rotten after being boiled for a long time. After the taste is boiled out, they should be fished out and thrown away to avoid soaking in it for a long time, which will make the soup turbid.