Chicken Broth
Mrs. Jefferson Coolidge
Take a chicken or fowl (small pieces of the former make the broth very good) and break the bones. Clean it carefully. Put it into a saucepan with two quarts of water, a very small onion, a little salt, and two tablespoonfuls of rice. When it boils skim and cover closely, and let it simmer slowly for six hours, if a fowl; if a chicken, for five hours.
About as timeless as a recipe gets — a slow, clean chicken-and-rice broth. Barely needs updating, just the timing put in context.
- Break the bonesCracking the bones (as directed) releases more gelatin and flavor into the broth — still good advice.
- The long, gentle simmer“Five to six hours” at a bare simmer, tightly covered, draws out a rich broth. A pressure cooker gets there in about an hour if you’re pressed.
- The riceTwo tablespoons of rice cook down into the broth, lightly thickening it and making it more sustaining — a nice touch to keep.
- Skim and season simplySkim as it comes to a boil for a clear broth; salt lightly. A restorative should be clean, not heavy.
Chicken broth as a restorative is one of the most universal ideas in all of cooking — the “Jewish penicillin” of Ashkenazi tradition, but equally at home in Chinese, French, and Créole kitchens, and prescribed by physicians since the medieval scholar Maimonides recommended chicken soup for the ailing. Credited here to Mrs. Jefferson Coolidge, it belongs to the sick-room repertoire of gentle broths — the food you make for someone you’re trying to get well.
From page 12 of the 1904 edition.
Original page from the book
