Category Archives: Cooking

How A Kitchen Scale Revolutionized My Baking Life

2 Replies

We talk about meats and eggs a lot, since that’s our business, of course. But I wanted to share a little tidbit that I learned along my cooking journey, and that is to use a kitchen scale for baking measurements.

First some background: One of the things I especially avoid at stores is bread. Store-bought bread, though we’ve all been conditioned to think it’s so tasty, is so unlike homemade, it’s unbelievable. Real bread molds within days and goes stale even sooner than that, whereas conventional brands last weeks without going stale or moldy. It really makes you wonder WHAT is in that stuff. But you can figure it out by looking at the long (and I do mean LONG) list of ingredients besides poor little flour.

Of course there are a handful of health food brands that are ok, but they are pricey—like $4-6 per loaf! Compare that to a home-baked loaf made from premium chemical-free flours. Even using the best-quality flour, a loaf will only cost you a couple of bucks at most. Huge savings to put toward more pasture-raised meats, right? 😀 Not to mention that you have complete control over the ingredients. And that’s what we’re really after. 

I know a lot of our readers will agree, and yet homemade bread remains a mystery! And a scary one at that! I know how overwhelmed I felt when Bread Day came around. 

Great news. I have unraveled the mystery, and it is that all this time I was measuring my special organic, unenriched, unbleached flour by volume rather than by weight. Figuring out the ideal dough texture was SO HARD because I was trying to teach myself what to look for without a tutor or any formal instruction, but I didn’t have unlimited time or patience to spend perfecting a technique. Sometimes my dough was so runny that it wouldn’t form a loaf at all and it was super-sticky and hard to work with. Other times it was so dry that it wouldn’t rise at all and would remain a dense little lump that was more like a brick than a loaf of bread. I would spend hours standing by the mixer, sprinkling tiny amounts of flour in, waiting for them to be incorporated, and then trying to decide if enough was enough yet. Bread was a huge burden. Sound familiar?

Enter the kitchen scale.

Matt got it for me for Christmas one year (per my request). The scale, paired with the knowledge that a cup of white flour weighs 120 grams, revolutionized my life in the kitchen. I became a bread expert overnight (well, not really–but expert enough for us!). And now I’m sharing this secret with you. Whatever bread or baking recipe you’re using, just use that simple conversion and it will give you consistent, successful results every time. (Except if you underbake it. You can still mess it up if you do that. Ask me how I know. ) Of course, different flours have different measuring densities, so if you’re using whole wheat, potato, coconut, almond, etc, you’ll have to find the correct conversion for those.

A kitchen scale also works great for measuring the fat in recipes. I use solid fats for cooking, like butter, lard and coconut oil. If you’ve ever used these, you know they’re a bit of a pain to measure without dirtying yet another dish and another spatula. No thanks!

The fat conversion you need to know (or to write on a sheet of paper and sneakily tape inside one of your cabinets) is 1 stick of butter is 8 Tbs is 113 g. This works for all common cooking fats. So if a pie recipe calls for a 2 cups of flour and 1/4 cup of butter, you can just use 240 grams of flour and 56 grams of lard. Cool, huh?

All my flour and fat in recipes are measured this way. In fact, if you skim through my most-used recipes, you’d see little division brackets and conversions scribbled all over the place. (I suppose the next revolutionary kitchen tool I’ll get will be a calculator…) It’s a great idea to write down the weights of other common ingredients on your pantry cheat-sheet so you can save yourself the hassle of figuring it out over and over. Then you can save time and money not washing extra measuring cups for things like milk, salt, sugar, etc. 

For those of you who are gluten-free, this will hopefully be a huge aid to you as well. Alternative flours like coconut and almond have an even greater tendency to get packed down and give unreliable volumetric measurements. This will work great for those, too. I have even taken to searching for baking recipes that are given by weight. There’s no guessing in these due to variation in ingredients, plus the recipes tend to be developed by culinary experts–they know baking must be done by weight to be done well every time. 

Because of my kitchen scale (which cost like $11, I might add—pretty small investment!), we have access to fresh-baked, chemical-free bread again because it’s easy enough for me to incorporate into our busy lives.

Here’s a simple recipe for homemade bread for you to try with your new kitchen scale:

Mix 780 g unbleached, unenriched flour (about 6.5 cups) with 1.5 Tbs yeast and 1.5 Tbs salt. Pour in 3 cups of lukewarm (not hot!) water and mix thoroughly, but do not knead.

Cover and keep in a warm place for 2 hours.

Separate the dough into 3 loaves, either free-form, or in loaf pans lined with parchment paper (you can also refrigerate dough to use later). Let rise, covered, for another 1.5 hours in a warm place.

Bake at 450 for 25 minutes.

That’s easier than making lasagna! 🙂 Happy eating!

Chicken Backs for Soup

12 Replies

Question: What are chicken backs?

Answer: “Chicken backs” are the core of the chicken that is left after the breast, wings, and legs have been cut away for parts.

Our chicken backs are fairly meaty and are typically used to make broth and to harvest the remaining meat. 2013 is the first year we have been able to offer this cut, and we are excited to share the results with you.

9 Chicken Backs in a 16-quart stock pot, ready for cooking!

9 Chicken Backs in a 16-quart stock pot, ready for cooking!

 

I (Jerica) love making huge batches of broth as opposed to small ones, since it is a time-intensive process, and adding more bones and water simply increases the yield, but not really the work. In this case, I decided to make about a half batch in my 16-quart pot just so I could document what I did easily. I used 3 bags of chicken backs, which have 3 carcasses each, so 9 total. It was about 13 lb of chicken backs, and would have cost me roughly $35 if I had bought them from myself at farmers’ market.

I took the thawed chicken backs overnight and placed them in the pot and covered them with water. I put it on medium-high and brought it to a boil, then reduced the heat to low to keep the broth at a visible simmer.

Stock Cooking

Let ‘dem bones simmer for at least 20 hours, removing the meat from the bones after the first hour. Add a little apple cider vinegar to improve the mineral extraction.

After an hour*, I removed the backs to a platter, let them cool for 20 minutes, and then picked off the meat from under the shoulder blades, along the back and neck, and what remained on the breast.

*The cooking time for meat-on cuts is important. If you cook it more than an hour, the bones will begin to fall apart and the meat will turn tough and stringy. It is best to pick off the meat after an hour of simmering, then return the bones to the pot to continue simmering.

Cooked chicken that used to be trash

The grand finale–cooked chicken meat gathered about an hour into the cooking process. This will be used for soup, tacos, or some other quick meal calling for cooked, boneless chicken.

With moderate thriftiness (aka no, I didn’t get every tiny scrap of meat, but I did try to get most of it), I was able to collect about ½ cup of meat per carcass, or about 1.5 cups per package of 3 backs. I tossed the bones back into the pot, put the meat into the fridge, and kept cooking the bones for another 20 hours or so.

When the time came, I poured the broth through a colander into a large metal bowl (careful—it’s HOT!). I got about 4 quarts of broth which was not terribly golden because I had neither used vegetables nor roasted the backs, which are nice touches but not necessary. I usually use broth in things like rice or as a soup base to which I will add veggies anyway, so I don’t worry about adding the flavor during the broth-making process. It comes later.
I was pretty happy with the yield. The leftover meat is great for tacos, casseroles, BBQ sandwiches, or even to throw into soup that you make with all that broth.

So for $35 and some elbow grease, I got 4 quarts of broth and 4.5 cups of meat. That’s about 2 lb of meat. If we assign a price to that, say $8/lb, that leaves about $19 for the broth, or about $5 per quart. I have no idea what the going rate is for store-bought broth or ground chicken, but I can tell you that this stuff is the best quality you can get. Homemade bone broth is rich in minerals and gelatin (that’s why it gels in the fridge and the commercial stuff doesn’t!). And it is an excellent way to get additional value from parts of your meat that you otherwise might have just thrown in the trash.

In this case, I’d say the chicken backs are wonderful if your primary goal is to get loads of broth plus a little meat if you don’t mind the work. If you want the golden chicken broth color right off the bat, you’ll need to add bouquet to this, such as herbs, carrots, celery, and onion. I usually opt to wait to add the veggies and use them as part of the meal for frugality’s sake, but I frequently add scraps that I have saved in the freezer, such as potato peels, carrot tops, celery leaves, onion roots, etc, in order to improve the flavor, and again, make something out of nothing that is extremely nutritious.

So from chicken backs you get two things: broth AND meat, which is perfect for making chicken tacos. Check out Jerica’s real lard-made flour tortilla recipe here.

Or you can read about how to make homemade broth and soup in more detail.

Potential Thanksgiving Cooking Class

2 Replies

Learn how to reduce your intake of additives, preservatives, and unnecessary sugar by attending a class on how to cook four Thanksgiving meal classic items from scratch!

1. Bread Stuffing

2. Brown Gravy

3. Traditional Cranberry Sauce and Fermented Cranberry Chutney

4. Sweet Potato Pie with Crust and Whipped Cream

It’s amazing how simple, delicious, and healthful these complementary menu items can be for your Thanksgiving Day meal. If you are intimidated by from-scratch recipes and fall into the trap of buying frozen, boxed, or canned goods, consider attending Jerica’s Thanksgiving cooking class! In 3 hours you will learn the skills to make these items, most of which can be made ahead and frozen for your special holiday. This year, choose to nourish your family with lovingly prepared sides at America’s favorite meal!

Cost is $35 per person (bring a friend and you each get $5 off!) . Includes printouts of all recipes necessary to create these 4 dishes. RSVP required.

Time, Date, and Location: To be determined by you!

We need your input! If you are interested in this class or others like it, please take a moment to complete our 6-question survey:

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool.