How to make Italian Chicken Broth - Come fare il brodo di pollo tradizionale

This is a recipie for a very tasteful chicken broth. The spices give to this broth a special taste, really appriciated during winter. I use it for soups and many preparations, I usually make it in big quantity and freeze it, to use it when i need. This  broth should be cooked not less than two hours, more you cook it, richer it gets. It is really better if you get organic chicken and veggies for this praparation. Organic chickens are in general much more tasteful and healthy as well as organic veggies. Well... home made broth is very easy to make and much better than any bouillon cube or canned broth you can find in shops, so why don't you try it and let me know how it worked out?

Makes about 3 liter of broth
Ingredients:
500gr Chicken (better if organic) cut in pieces
1 Medium onion
1 Carrot
1 Medium tomato
1 Rib of celery
1 Medium potato
1 Bay leaf
6 black peppercorns
4 Cloves
1 Star Anice (optional)
2 Garlic cloves (optional)
1 Tbs unrifined grey sea salt
4 Liters water

The bay leaf is missing in the photo, sorry... Peel the onion, the carrot and potato, wash the tomato. Pierce the peeled onion with the 4 cloves.

 

Place all ingredients in a broth pan, add 4 liters of water and salt. Cover and bring to a boil on medium heat.

While boiling a brownish foam will appear on the surface, skim it using a large spoon. Once done, taste for salt. Cover and simmer for a minimum of  2 further hours(or much more) at low heat.

After minimum two hours of total cooking at low heat, strain the broth and discart the solids (you can use them for a soup or chicken salad).

Your Chicken broth is ready! Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight. The day after skim the  solid fat from surface. Broth can be refrigerated for up two days or frozen for several months. Broth can be used for soups, to cook risotto or meat, to make "tortellini in brodo" or "scrippelle in brodo" or a nice "pastina in brodo". To have a very clear broth add some ice cubes to the warm broth while you strain it. Buon appetito!