Chinese-accented Chicken Stock

[nakji]

I use a whole stock chicken cut up into pieces - feet but no head, and two Japanese leek stalks. Chinese leek stalks? Whatever you'd like to call them.

I use the skin from homemade lop yuk, which adds both flavor and body bc of the gelatin.

I use lop yuk rind with attached fat when making corn chowder. It yields an unctuous and smoky taste.

[CNLink]

This is a recipe I learned from a professional chef.

The secret of good shang tong is in the chicken. Use only old chicken for broth making. The meat is firmer but holds lots more of flavor than young chicken.

To get better result I boil all the ingredients for a few minutes and drain the water to remove the blood and unpleasant smell of raw meat.

Here are my ingredients: one whole chicken, 50g of Chinese dry ham, a small piece of pork, 4-5 dry scallops, rock sugar, white pepper, half a stick of cinnamon, 2-3 bay leaves and about 4 liter of water.

I simmer the whole thing for 6-8 hours; it is done when the liquid reduces to half.

I Remove the cinnamon and bay leaf in the second hour of cooking, otherwise their smells are too overwhelming.

[Ce'nedra]

CNLink that sounds really similar to our family chicken stock when we intend to jazz it up a bit for a nice, nourishing noodle soup. Mmmm...comfort food.

[Dejah]

CNLink:

Year old layers make good stock.

What did your professional chef contact use this particular broth for? There seems to be so many flavours in the ingredients, I would think it would be used for specific dishes rather than all purpose?

Cinnamon and rock sugar is totally foreign to my thoughts on making stock. Maybe I need to try this combination to see how dried scallops, rock sugar and cinnamon work together... Maybe for pho?

[CNLink]

Dejah:

In the Chinese Restaurants, there are 3 classes of broths:

1. “tou tong” or “first broth” made with similar receipts in my original post;

2. “er tong” or “second broth” made by re-cooking what’s left after the tou tong is harvested, usually with bones and chicken feet added;

3. “wai tong”, the “last broth” made by cooking the leftover with vegetables.

The applications of the broths are versatile. Tou tong is usually reserved for exquisite dishes such as shark fin. Er tong and wai tong are used as condiments in stir fry, braise… etc and as the base of soup dishes. However, this practice is found only in high-class restaurants where MSG has no place.

I use my broth in place of chicken cube and oyster sauce to avoid MSG. The flavor of the tou tong is so intense that only a small amount is needed for each dish.

Depending on the style of cooking and personal favor, you may experiment with any kind of spices while making broth. Cinnamon is not an absolute necessity but a flavor I like.

While you mention that there are many flavors in the broth, I want to point out that there is no golden rule about the ingredients. We can tune the flavor by making adjustment to the ingredients but I do not recommend taking out the rock sugar.

I believe cooking is an adventure and it takes a lot of imagination.

Edited December 12, 2009 by CNLink (log)

[Dejah]

CNlink:

Perhaps the reason for the rock sugar is like what some cooks do when stir-frying: in place of MSG, they will add a pinch of sugar.

I was amazed acouple of weeks ago when a local Chinese restauranteur and cook bragged that he no longer used MSG. Instead, he is using "chicken powder" much like the chicken bouillion cubes. I pointed out that there is MSG in the powder, but, "Oh, No. There is just a little bit." I can't understand why it seems so difficult to make stock!

[CNLink]

Dejah:

Only high-end restaurants adhere to the broth protocol. Most other restaurants use chicken powder for cost and efficiency reasons.

Even for the chicken powder, there are some professional variants with improved contents of the real-stuff and less MSG, which is quite different from what we use at home.

[Ce'nedra]

Rock sugar is a must when my mum is making stock -she says it adds a particular depth that plain sugar can't replicate. Also the dried scallops (or squid) add that umami taste that's so loved in Chinese cuisine. I always thought this was very typical?

[Dejah]

I suppose the amount of MSG content may have changed since I retired from the restaurant biz (+7 years ago). I just think that basic home made stock is better, and if I want to enhance it with MSG when cooking, I can control the amount better than the unknown amount in powders.

I do use conpoy in stocks for a particular use, such as congee. I use dried squid/octopus when making lotus root soup, etc, but I don't add it when making a supply of basic stock.

Amazing all these variants in famly recipes!

[SusieQ]

One point worth mentioning is that you should save the chicken fat you get off of your stock and use it for stir-fries, especially with garlic and greens. Add some salt and you need nothing else.

Hi Chris, this is such an elementary question, but I don't know the answer and maybe you do! How do you save your chicken fat? I recently cleaned out my fridge and found about a dozen or more containers of old chicken fat. I threw them all out because I knew some of them were several years old (yes, I know, I should clean out my fridge more often ) and all of them were at least a month old. Right now I have a big glob of turkey fat in the fridge, which I have no idea what I'll do with but I assume it's the same as with chicken fat. Anyway, to my question: how do you save it and for how long? In the fridge? In the freezer? Thank you!

SusieQ

p.s. and do you think my turkey fat is already too old?

[Chris Amirault]

I save it in a jar in the fridge and toss it if it's moldy, but it usually doesn't get moldy if I've cooked off the moisture. It keeps indefinitely there; when I've frozen air-tight packets of various fats, they seem to last forever.

[SusieQ]

I save it in a jar in the fridge and toss it if it's moldy, but it usually doesn't get moldy if I've cooked off the moisture. It keeps indefinitely there; when I've frozen air-tight packets of various fats, they seem to last forever.

Thank you! Now one last question. How do you "cook off the moisture"? All I ever do is just suction up the fat and then put it in a container. Strained first through a paper towel if there's bits of stuff in it.

SusieQ

[Chris Amirault]

You can separate it by letting it cool in the fridge; the fat will rise to the top and solidify. Then, if you heat it gently to a bit more than 212F/100C, any additional water content will cook off and you'll be left with just the fat.

[SusieQ]

You can separate it by letting it cool in the fridge; the fat will rise to the top and solidify. Then, if you heat it gently to a bit more than 212F/100C, any additional water content will cook off and you'll be left with just the fat.

That's how I usually get the fat, by letting it solidify in the fridge. I thought that was sufficient, but I see I was missing a step. Thank you!

SusieQ