This is what I served up to our volunteer historical interpreters this weekend. On Saturday, it was served up as a stew, and on Sunday I turned it into a lovely chicken soup. This is one of those early fall recipes that sticks to your ribs, is simple enough to throw together anytime, and delicious enough to make once a week. You can also vary the flavorings easily enough, to make it a slightly different meal each time! This recipe serves five people, with enough leftovers the following day to make soup.
Ingredients:
- bone in, skin on chicken thighs (8 pack)
- 2 large onions, diced
- 1/4 cup butter, margarine, or olive oil
- whole wheat flour
- salt and pepper to taste
- fresh herbs (whatever you have on hand)
- dried thyme, garlic, and nutmeg to taste
- 3 to 4 cups of seasonal vegetables, cut into chunks
- 2 to 4 cups of water
In a large cast iron pot or pan, melt the butter until it is entirely liquid and starting to sizzle. Meanwhile, put the flour and the dry spices (thyme, garlic, nutmeg, salt, pepper, etc) into a large bowl and whisk them to mix it up. Coat each of the chicken thighs on all sides with the flour mixture, and lay into the melted butter (the skin and meaty side down). When all the pieces are in the pot, set a timer for about five minutes. Turn the chicken over when the skins are starting to brown but not burn.
Add into the pot your onions and any fresh herbs, minced (thyme, oregano, watercress, egyptian walking onion, dill, and whatever else you have). Toss in your vegetables on top. I used several carrots, some brussel sprouts, and a couple of nice potatoes cut into thin slices. Add in enough water to just cover the chicken. Bring to a boil, and then reduce heat and simmer until the chicken is tender and falling off the bone, and the carrots and any other “hard” vegetables are soft enough to eat. This should take about an hour or two, depending on the temperature you cook them at.
If you’re doing this over a fire, you want to start with a very brisk fire, with a good set of coals underneath for solid, steady heat. Once you’ve reached the boil, hitch your trammel about 3 holes higher, so that you don’t burn the chicken but the heat continues to cook your pot. You can also make this in a crockpot on high for four hours. Be sure to brown your chicken in a pan before putting it into the crockpot, though.
I took the lid off my pot for the last half hour or so, both to taunt and tempt the people I’d be feeding, and to entice the guests of the Fort to ask questions and come into my kitchen to visit me! This allowed most of the liquid to turn into a lovely, thick gravy.
We served this by removing all the chicken and giving each person one thigh. A piece of fresh baked bread (still warm from the beehive oven!) was laid beside the chicken, and the vegetables and gravy were ladled over it. This was VERY tasty, and incredibly filling.
When the meal was done, I separately packed away the chicken, the vegetables, and the leftover broth/gravy from the bottom of the pot. On Sunday morning, I pulled out the chicken and deboned it. The bones went back into the pot, and the meat went into a bowl for use in the soup later. I added several cups of water and a bit more of the spices I’d used the night before, and set it over a brisk fire to boil for two hours. This became a very flavorful bone broth.
I scooped out all the bones, skin, and gristle from the broth, and then added in the leftover meat, vegetables, and gravy. This was put back over the fire at a much lower temperature, and allowed to simmer until lunchtime, about an hour. The soup was served up with bread to dip into it, and it was also very delicious!
If I’d been staying another day at the Fort, I would have taken the bones, used a bone knife or axe to crack them open, and put them into another pot and boiled them until they were entirely devoid of all marrow and goodness. This would provide me with a good, hearty pot of chicken bone broth to be used over the next few days. If you’re living in the modern world, you can use a pressure canner to make shelf stable jars of chicken broth/stock this way, or you can freeze it either in large ziploc baggies, or in ice cube trays. Ice cubes are about a tablespoon, so if you have recipes that only need a few tablespoons of broth, this is a great way to store it. Once the chicken cubes are frozen, they can be stored in a sealed container and used for six months to a year.