How to make meat broth clear. What to do if your chicken broth is cloudy
A good broth is the head of everything! A beautiful transparent broth with golden droplets of fat and a stunning aroma is already a complete first course. If the broth is cloudy, with foam, gray and ugly, then it will not turn out to be soup, but a real gruel. This shouldn't happen. There are plenty of ways to lighten homemade broths, dye them into pleasing colors, and transform the humble soup into a stunning dish for homemade lunches.
How to make broths transparent - general principles
Pieces of meat or poultry with pieces of ichor or dried blood should not be used for clear broths. If there are pieces of fat or lard hanging down, then they also need to be removed. Next, the main product must be thoroughly rinsed with cold water and squeezed out. It is advisable to soak bones and large pieces of pork and beef for half an hour in cold water. To prevent the broth from becoming cloudy, you need to skim off the foam. This is done not only during boiling, but also during the cooking process.
Basic principles of cooking:
1. You should not let the broth actively boil and seethe, otherwise it will never turn out transparent.
2. There is no need to salt the broth during cooking; this is done at the very end or at least half an hour beforehand.
3. After straining, the broth must be returned to a clean pan; be sure to rinse the vessel.
4. Carrots, onions, and parsley root give broths not only taste, but also a pleasant color. You need to add them entirely.
Clarifying the broth is the removal of turbidity, that is, small particles. This cannot be done through conventional straining. In cooking, a pull is used, most often based on egg white. There is a detailed recipe below. The essence of the method is absorption, “pulling” suspended particles out of the liquid. Then they are removed along with the protein. Other products can be added to the egg, for example, vegetables, minced meat, crushed bones.
How to clarify broth using an egg
One of the simplest and most well-known ways to clarify broth is to make a draw. A recipe based on egg whites is suitable for any chicken and meat broths; it is in cookery books.
Ingredients
3-4 liters of ready-made broth;
Preparation
1. Wash the eggshells thoroughly with soap and rinse with cold water. Break the eggs and remove the yolks. They can be used for other dishes, we will not need them.
2. Beat the whites into a good dense foam. Crush the egg shells with your hands.
3. Cool the prepared broth to about 70-75 degrees, add the whites and stir.
4. Place the pan with the broth on the stove, turn on the highest heat, and quickly bring to a boil. Turn off and leave for ten minutes.
5. Repeat boiling the broth with eggs two more times, but each time turn it off and let the broth sit for a while.
6. Now take gauze, put it in a colander, and strain the broth. Or we use a sieve with small cells for this.
7. Now be sure to bring the broth to a boil again and use it for your needs.
How to make broth transparent (minced meat extract)
Another simple way to make meat broth transparent. For the pull, in addition to egg whites, you will also need some minced meat. It is important for him to use meat without fat.
Ingredients
1 carrot;
1 onion;
500-800 g beef;
2.5-3 liters of water;
250 g minced meat;
Preparation
1. Fill the washed beef with bones or just the bones with cold water and place on the stove.
2. When boiling, you need to carefully remove the foam. Cook the broth, covered, at a gentle simmer for about an hour.
3. Remove the top husk from the onion or simply rinse it well from the soil and throw it into the pan. Immediately throw in the peeled but not chopped carrots. Cook the broth for another hour. When boiling vegetables, the foam must also be removed.
4. Twist a lean piece of meat. Beat the egg white until foamy. Combine with minced meat and stir.
5. Add the minced meat to the pan with boiling broth. Stir so that large lumps do not set. Slowly bring to a boil.
6. Cook the broth over low heat for about half an hour.
7. Wet a cotton cloth or gauze folded in several layers. Strain the broth.
Clear chicken broth for noodles and soups
Easy clear chicken broth recipe. It can simply be served with herbs and croutons, or used to make homemade noodles and light soups. It is better to use homemade chicken, any parts except breast will do.
Ingredients
Chicken 1-1.5 kg;
1 carrot;
1 onion;
1 parsley root;
4-5 peppercorns, salt.
Preparation
1. Rinse the chicken carcass with cold water, remove any damage or feathers from the surface.
2. Place in a saucepan and fill the bird with water.
3. Place on maximum heat and quickly bring to a boil. Use a large spoon to collect all the foam from the surface. Reduce heat, simmer for fifteen minutes, do not let it boil actively.
4. Add parsley root and onion. Carrots, whole, no need to cut anything. Add heat, bring to a boil again, remove the foam again and turn off the heat.
5. Cover the pan and cook the broth for about another hour. If the chicken is homemade or farmed, then about 1.5 hours.
6. About 15 minutes before the end of cooking, remove the vegetables from the broth, add bay, pepper, and salt.
How to lighten broth with lemon juice
This method is useful if the broth after cooking turns out to be gray or brownish in color. A soup made from such a base will not be very attractive.
Ingredients
2 liters of broth;
Husk of 1 onion;
1 tbsp. l. lemon juice.
Preparation
1. For a golden color, throw a little onion peel into the cloudy and dark broth and boil for a couple of minutes.
2. Strain through a cloth or strainer and return to the pan.
3. Put it on the stove again, add lemon juice, stir. You can add a little dry acid.
How to make the broth transparent (for jellied meat, aspic)
One of the most difficult questions is how to clarify the broth for jellies, jellied meats, and jellied meats. The broth takes a long time to prepare, it’s very rich, it just doesn’t turn out transparent and golden, the dishes aren’t very pretty, but that’s easy to fix!
Ingredients
2.5 liters of broth;
2 yolks;
Carrot
Bulb.
Preparation
1. First, the broth must be cooled well and refrigerated for several hours. A layer of fat forms on the surface. Take a spoon and remove it. It can be used for various dishes, roasted for soups. Don't throw it away, put it in the refrigerator.
2. Now heat the broth on the stove.
3. Cut the onion into small cubes, grate the carrots, and pour everything into a bowl.
4. Beat the egg whites and mix with the vegetables.
5. Place the guy in the boiling broth, stir and immediately turn off the stove, but do not stop stirring, do this for about five more minutes
6. Turn on the stove and bring the broth to a boil again, turn it off, and cover.
7. After about fifteen minutes, strain the broth for jellied meat.
8. We evaluate transparency. If there are particles or light cloudiness left, you can add the whipped egg white again, this time without vegetables, heat and strain. The procedure is repeated until the desired result is obtained.
Clear chicken broth with bone extract
To prepare such a guy and obtain a clear chicken broth, you will need crushed bones. By the way, they can be prepared in advance, dried and stored in a jar on the kitchen shelf.
Ingredients
2.5-3 liters of broth;
25 g seeds.
Preparation
1. Cook aromatic chicken broth from any parts of the carcass or whole bird. Remove the meat before clarification.
2. Beat the egg whites with a fork or whisk into a good foam.
3. Add chopped bones to the protein and stir. If there is more broth, then double the amount of products.
4. Place the egg whites and bones into the broth, stir quickly, and turn on the stove.
5. Boil over low heat for about ten minutes. There is no need to let the broth boil, just simmer and warm up. Stir.
6. Turn off the stove and let it sit for a while so that the heat goes away.
7. Strain the broth from the ingredients of the pull through a cotton cloth.
How to lighten broth with carrots and protein
Another option for a guy. It is suitable for any fish and meat broths. Carrots not only help remove cloudy particles, but also give the broth a beautiful color.
Ingredients
2.5-3 liters of broth;
Big carrot;
Two squirrels.
Preparation
1. Wash the carrots with a brush; you don’t have to peel them. Take a fine grater and chop it. You can use a combine.
2. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Combine with carrots and mix gently.
3. Add the carrot extract to the hot broth and bring to a boil. Stir quickly and turn off. Cover the pan and leave for ten minutes.
4. Bring to a boil again, stir to collect all suspended particles, turn off.
5. Leave for about another 10-15 minutes, then strain the finished broth through a damp, lint-free cloth.
Is there any cooked broth left? Feel free to freeze it! It is better to pour it into silicone molds. There will always be a fragrant additive in the freezer for sauces and any first and second courses.
If the broth is prepared with rice, the cereal must be boiled separately until almost ready, only then added to the total mass. You will never get a clear broth with it.
Peeled onions and carrots give the broth a beautiful golden hue. Chicken broths and soups look especially appetizing with them.
Did the broth turn out ugly and gray? You can add carrots and onions to it, as mentioned above, but turmeric and curry seasoning will help quickly correct the appearance; they perfectly color the first dishes, give a golden hue and a quite pleasant taste.
The foam sank to the bottom and you didn’t have time to remove it? You need to pour a glass of cold water into the pan and bring the liquid to a boil again.
Perhaps everyone has heard at least once about the beneficial properties of chicken broth - it helps to cope with colds, restores the strength of an exhausted body, replaces full-fledged meat for people on a diet, perfectly relieves the effects of alcohol intoxication, etc. And, of course, the classic broth, clear as a tear, comes first. However, transparency still needs to be achieved, because not every housewife can achieve it on her own. How to cook clear chicken broth?
Main ingredients for the broth:
- chicken (whole or thighs. It is not advisable to take fillet, otherwise the broth will not be rich enough);
- whole onion;
- 2 medium carrots;
- 3-5 l. water.
The classic way to make clear broth
- Rinse the chicken thoroughly under cold water and remove excess fat - this will reduce the likelihood of getting a cloudy broth several times. To be sure, you can also remove the skin - this is especially true for store-bought chicken. However, if the chicken is homemade, it is better not to touch the skin, because it contains the main amount of useful elements.
- Place the chicken in a saucepan and add 3 liters of cold water. Place on the lowest and slowest heat - let it come to a boil for about half an hour. Immediately put the whole onion with the husk into the broth, peeling it off the soil - this will give your broth not only transparency, but also a beautiful golden hue.
- Skim off the foam after the first boil.
- Cook the chicken for about three hours, skimming off the foam several more times, and at the end of cooking, remove the onion from the broth and discard. You have a clear broth!
- Rinse the chicken under cold water and remove the skin and excess fat.
- Place chicken in a saucepan of hot water and bring to a boil over medium heat.
- After foam appears, drain the water and fill the pan with cold water. Bring the broth to a simmer over low heat.
- At this time, grate the carrots on a large grater and cut the onion into cubes. Fry the resulting mixture in a dry, hot frying pan without oil until golden brown. Be careful not to burn the vegetables, as the burning will add bitterness to the broth.
- Wait until it boils, skim off the foam and add the onions and carrots to the pan. Then, as in the first recipe, simmer the broth over low heat, periodically skimming off the foam.
- Seasonings should be added 10-15 minutes before the end of cooking, so that they have time to add flavor, but do not have time to boil. Please note that after turning off the fire, you will need to get the seasonings out, so if there are a lot of them, put them in an improvised gauze bag, it will be easier to remove.
- Also take out the vegetables - they have already given all their taste and color to the broth, and in the future they are no longer needed.
- The broth is ready. In rare cases, and if this recipe is followed exactly, the broth will not be clear enough - then you just need to strain it through double-folded gauze into a large heat-resistant container.
- Ground sweet peas and bay leaves go well with chicken;
- dried dill umbrellas help to highlight the taste of chicken, adding new notes to it and without interrupting its true taste;
- It is undesirable to use peppercorns and cloves - they completely kill the taste of meat;
- It is better to cook the broth without a lid - this will reduce the likelihood of strong boiling water, and, therefore, the broth will be clearer;
- If you are focusing on a tasty broth, you need to salt it immediately when there are signs of boiling water. Well, if you want to end up with tasty meat, add salt half an hour before the end of cooking.
Properly cooked broth is the highest aerobatics in cooking. The quality of the finished soup, sauce or aspic prepared with it depends on it. And the fish or meat broth itself is already an independent dish. It can be served with croutons, pies or adding a boiled egg. Unfortunately, sometimes the broth becomes cloudy and loses its appetizing appearance. What to do in this case? How to make the broth clear again?
What determines the transparency of the broth?
In many ways, it depends on the products from which it is prepared.
- The fattier the meat, the more likely it is that the broth will turn out cloudy. When cooked, fats turn into liquid and form an emulsion with it. The longer the broth is cooked, the more likely it is that the fats will break down into fatty acids and glycerol and the broth will become cloudy.
- Broth from defrosted meat is more likely to be cloudy than from fresh meat. When defrosting, the meat loses its juices, which turn into water during cooking. The broth becomes more nutritious and rich, but some of the proteins coagulate, forming foam, which causes a loss of transparency.
- If the water boils strongly during cooking, the broth even from chicken breast is guaranteed to turn out cloudy. When boiling, small drops of fat and protein flakes are mixed, which form an emulsion and make the broth cloudy.
- It is important to remove all floating foam when boiling until it stops forming. Otherwise the broth will become cloudy.
The fat content of the meat used for cooking affects the clarity of the broth
The quality of meat or fish does not always depend on us, but proper preparation to achieve maximum transparency is in our hands. For this it is useful to know some rules:
- Before cooking, the products must be thoroughly washed with cold water; there should be no blood left on them.
- Products should be placed in cold water if the goal is to cook broth rather than meat. This way, everything valuable will gradually pass from meat into liquid and the broth will turn out tastier and richer. If meat is placed in hot water, the proteins on the surface will coagulate, the pores will close, and everything valuable will remain in the meat. Which is good for the meat, but bad for the broth.
- Bring the water to a boil at high heat, reduce to low, and after removing the foam, cook on low. The water should not boil, but only sway.
- Just cover the pan with a lid, but not tightly, otherwise the broth will begin to boil and lose transparency.
- After boiling, remove all foam. We do this until it forms. Most sources advise doing this with a slotted spoon, but it’s better to use a spoon, it turns out cleaner. It is also advisable to remove excess fat.
How to Make Clear Broth for Poultry, Meat or Fish Soup
To cook clear broth you need to know some rules and strictly follow the instructions.
- Let's prepare the products: cut the meat into small pieces, clean the bones, chop them, get rid of the gills and eyes from the fish heads, chop the big heads too. You can put the chicken whole.
You don’t have to cut up the chicken for the broth, but cook it whole
- Wash the products thoroughly, but do not squeeze them so that they do not lose their juices.
To prepare the broth, pour cold water over the ingredients.
- Bring to a boil over high heat with the lid tightly closed.
To prevent the broth from being cloudy, you need to remove all the foam.
- Pour in a spoonful of cold water, and after boiling, remove the floating foam. We repeat three times.
- Reduce the heat to minimum, open the lid slightly or remove it completely. Remove foam and fat from time to time.
- Add roots and vegetables and, if necessary, add salt: chicken broth - 15–20 minutes, meat broth - 30 minutes before the end of cooking, add salt to fish broth immediately after boiling.
Vegetables and roots will make the broth more tasty and aromatic
- Add seasonings and herbs. For broths they make a “bouquet garni”.
- Cook until done. You can tell by the readiness of the meat. To do this, pierce the thickest edge with a chef's needle or just a fork. If they go in easily, the meat is ready.
- We take out the meat, throw away the vegetables, strain the broth through a fine sieve or cheesecloth in 2-3 layers.
Broth with chicken and egg - a tasty and healthy dish
“Bouquet garni” is a mixture of herbs tied with thread. It is dropped into the broth when cooked, then removed and discarded. The classic bouquet includes bay leaf, parsley and thyme. Depending on the recipe, the herbs vary.
For small seasonings, such as peppercorns, you can make a knot out of gauze or a wide bandage and place it in the pan. If you strain the broth, the seasonings can be placed directly into the pan, then they will remain on the sieve.
To make the broth even more transparent, after boiling, you can cook the dish for 15 minutes, drain the water, wash the meat and dishes again, add cold water again and cook as described above. There is an opinion that in this way you will get rid of all the harmful substances and antibiotics contained in the products. A controversial statement, since in the first 20 minutes most of the nutrients pass into the broth.
How to make chicken or breast broth
Cooking time depends on the age of the bird and the size of the piece, from 40 minutes to 2 hours. If preparing dietary broth, it is recommended to remove the skin, it contains a lot of fat. If you cook broth with giblets, do not add liver, it will give a peculiar taste and may cause the broth to become cloudy.
They say that in order for the broth to turn out golden, you need to use a certain type of chicken: skinny and preferably one that walked on its own 🙂 I’m serious. I was enlightened by my father-in-law, who lives in Perm and who always buys a certain type of chicken for broth; its bones are not yet chewable at all. 🙂 The broth turns out excellent.
https://www.u-mama.ru/forum/family/cook/11682/
Beef or pork soup base
It is advisable to take the meat with a bone. Broth without a pit is like a song without accompaniment. Okay, but something is missing. You can also make bone broth without meat. The bones are first chopped into pieces, and the tubular bones are boiled whole. Wash the prepared foods and clean the bones. Beef broth is cooked for 3 hours, pork broth - 2 hours, bone broth - 4-5 hours. Salt is added 30 minutes before the end of cooking, then add roots and herbs.
How to make a delicious fish broth
Fish broth should be cooked for no longer than 40 minutes; it is recommended to add salt at the beginning of cooking.
Carrots, onions, celery and parsley root are put into meat and chicken broths, and onions and parsley into fish broths.
To give your chicken broth a nice golden hue, add onion skins while it simmers. You can boil the husks in a separate bowl, and then add the broth to the dish. This will improve its color and enrich it with vitamins. Another option is to caramelize the sugar until dark and then pour it into the broth. But this is a matter of taste.
Basis for jellied meat and aspic
To cook jellied meat, it is very important to properly prepare the ingredients. Since the parts used for jellied meat are those that are not used in other dishes - legs, tails, heads, they must be processed before cooking. The aspic kit must be pre-soaked in cold water for 3-12 hours to remove excess blood and soften the skin. After this, scrape the meat ingredients with a knife and wash them again.
Next, as usual, put the food in a pan, add cold water, bring to a boil, skim off the foam and cook over low heat for 15 minutes. But in this case, it is appropriate to drain the first broth. This will not only allow for greater transparency, but will also reduce the calorie content of the jellied meat, because we are cooking a very rich broth.
The washed meat is poured with cold water, brought to a boil and, as described above, cooked for 5–6 hours over low heat. A multicooker helps a lot in this process, but if you don’t have one, you can easily get by with a stove. Vegetables and roots are added 1 hour before the end of cooking, salt and spices are added 30 minutes.
As you can see, preparing a clear broth requires attention and reverent attitude. But if for some reason it still becomes cloudy, you need to lighten it.
The broth for jellied meat must be cooked over very low heat, otherwise it will become cloudy.
How to clarify cloudy fish, chicken or meat broth
A pull will help restore transparency to the broth. From the name it is clear that the pull exists to pull out turbidity, fat and foam flakes from the broth.
The easiest way to tighten is with egg white. Beat the egg white a little with a fork and add it in a thin stream while stirring into the broth, which has cooled to 70 degrees. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring. The protein will capture all the turbidity from the broth and sink to the bottom. All that remains is to strain it.
I do not use an egg, but only a protein, and sometimes several proteins... (one for 1.5 liters of broth) it coagulates along with grains of meat and foam, which create turbidity, in this form it is easier to filter... but often I filter through a paper filter that is used in coffee maker, previously just through a waffle towel
https://forum.say7.info/topic21261.html
Another way is to add minced meat diluted with water to the broth. For meat broth, use minced meat, for chicken broth, minced chicken. Mixed with egg white, diluted with a small amount of cold broth or water. The minced meat is added to the broth, stirred, the dish is allowed to boil and cooked for several minutes. The minced meat will cook and sink to the bottom. After this, strain the broth through a fine sieve or cheesecloth.
Instead of minced meat, you can use grated carrots, then there is no need to dilute with water. The main principle: there must be protein in the guy that will bind the dregs.
For fish broth in the old days, they used a guy made from pressed caviar. Now you can get by with egg whites.
Video: how to cook clear broth - master class from chef Ilya Lazerson
Now you know how to prepare clear broth and how you can restore its transparency. The main thing is to follow the rules and not forget about some tricks that even professionals use, because no one is immune from mistakes.
Broth - everyone knows this word. But how to cook it correctly? You can evaluate the skill of the cook by the ability to prepare it aromatic, transparent and rich.
If we want to cook any soup, first of all we cook it - this is the basis of the basics of home cooking. And then we add vegetables and cereals to it. But it can also be used in preparing a variety of sauces, cereals, stews and many other dishes.
To cook it delicious, you first need to choose the right meat.
For chicken, it is better to take a young chicken that has not been frozen. This chicken will turn out transparent and rich. It will not be possible to cook it tasty from old chicken or chicken. Almost all parts of the carcass are suitable for cooking. There is no consensus on which part is tastier to cook from.
For a rich meat option, it is better to use fresh or chilled hind quarters, brisket or shoulder, preferably meat from young bulls. It is more tender, juicy and non-greasy. Plus, it cooks much faster. For borscht, sauerkraut soup and kharcho soup, you can use fattier meat.
If you cook it from veal, it turns out tender and pleasant to the taste, but not transparent enough. If you cook soups based on it, which are seasoned with tomato paste or various dressings, the soup will turn out delicious.
It is also good to use lamb for cooking. Many soups of oriental cuisine are prepared on their basis. There is an opinion that lamb has a certain “specific” smell, maybe it does, it’s hard to argue with the opinion. But you can’t argue with the fact that the broth invariably turns out tasty, rich and very healthy. In addition, spices are always used in oriental cuisine.
1. Choose the right meat. There is no need to cut it, it should release its juices gradually, slowly. If you cook it from chicken, it is advisable to remove the skin from it - it may make the dish too greasy.
2. Pour enough water so that you don’t have to add more later. The ratio is approximately this: for 3 liters of water, 500-600 grams of meat. If the meat is stringy and old, then you need to pour more water, taking into account the fact that the water will boil away.
3. Do not add water during cooking. This deteriorates the taste. And also do not cook for too long, as this will make it darken.
4. Place the meat in the pan only in cold water. Bring to a boil over moderate heat, so the meat heats up gradually. Cook over low heat without a lid so that the evaporating water does not drip back into the pan and spoil the taste. It’s more like it’s not boiling, but rather languishing. If you cook it over high heat, it will become cloudy and its taste will also be lost.
5. During the cooking process, foam should be removed. We begin to remove the foam when the contents of the pan have not yet begun to boil. We remove it both when it boils and during the entire cooking process. If this is not done in a timely manner, the foam will soon settle to the bottom of the pan in the form of flakes, which will ruin the appearance of the dish. Remove foam adhering to the walls of the pan with a damp cloth.
6. We also remove excess fat throughout the cooking process if we are preparing it for soup. And all the fat, if we cook it transparent. It should be removed with a paper towel, as it gives the dish an unpleasant greasy taste.
7. 30-40 minutes before the end of cooking, add vegetables - they will make it more flavorful. Vegetables and herbs are designed to enrich the taste and aroma of the dish. Onions, carrots and celery are best suited - this is a classic “vegetable composition” for meat broth. For a two to three liter pan, one medium onion, small carrot and celery root are enough. But it’s better to add spices (bay leaf, allspice, dried thyme) 7-10 minutes before the end of cooking, otherwise it will taste bitter.
8. Salt about half an hour before cooking.
9. Cooking time over very low heat after boiling depends on the size of the piece, the toughness of the meat, the age of the animal and the desired strength of the broth that you want to achieve. So, for example, it will reach readiness in 1-1.5 hours if you use 1 kilogram of meat from young bulls, and in 2.5-3 hours if the meat is from adult beef. From pork - after boiling, cook for 1.5-2.5 hours, from lamb - 1.5-2 hours, from chicken - 1-2 hours.
10. After cooking, you need to remove the meat and vegetables from it and strain it through a fine sieve or a linen napkin soaked in water and wrung dry so that it is transparent and to prevent small fragments of bones from getting into the dish. Vegetables and bones can be thrown away, because they have already given all their taste and aroma to the dish, and they no longer have any value
Secrets of making tasty and light broth
If you are forced to use frozen meat, then you need to be able to defrost it correctly. The optimal way is to wash the meat with cold water and place it in a closed container for 2-3 hours. Do not use a microwave or hot water for this.
To cook a delicious broth, use a pan with a thick bottom and, if possible, thick walls. This will ensure gradual and even heating. And the meat will most fully give away all its beneficial substances.
It should not boil strongly - the movement of the liquid should be barely noticeable. If your stove is difficult to adjust so that the desired temperature is maintained, try placing the pan in the oven, preheated to a temperature of 100–110 degrees.
It is better to add no more than a pinch of salt to it or not at all: when cooking, more liquid may evaporate from it than you expected, so it runs the risk of being over-salted. It is better to salt the dish that you plan to cook based on it.
How to make diet chicken or turkey broth
Dietary broth is made from chicken or turkey meat. It is useful for sick people or people on a diet.
It needs to be cooked in a special way. Be sure to remove the skin from the bird, remove all subcutaneous fat, add cold water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Then remove the bird from the pan and drain the water. Wash the pan, wipe dry, put the bird in it, add fresh water and cook in the usual way. With the first water, the remaining fat is almost completely removed along with the cholesterol it contains, while the healthy protein is completely preserved.
Bon appetit!
Broth can be not only an independent dish, but also the basis for soup or, for example, risotto. In any case, the broth must be cooked according to the rules and be transparent. Be that as it may, when preparing and serving dishes, the aesthetic side of the issue is very important. In this article we will look at ways to clarify broth.
Why does the broth become cloudy?
The broth becomes cloudy due to the fact that the protein contained in the meat begins to coagulate - this happens when the broth is not cooked correctly:
- If the ingredients for soup or broth are poured with hot water. Therefore, it is recommended to start cooking the broth only after you have poured cool water into the meat in the pan;
- If you do not remove the foam from it at a strong boil;
- If you don't use vegetables;
- If not strained after cooking.
Rules for preparing clear broth
There are several rules with which you can achieve clear broth:
- Boil the chicken over low heat.
- Be sure to add the peeled onion to the broth at the very beginning of cooking.
- Watch the broth carefully - promptly remove the foam and fat that form on the surface of the broth during the cooking process.
- After cooking, make it a rule to strain the broth.
Methods for clarifying ready-made broth
If any of the rules above were not used and the broth came out cloudy, there are several ways to clarify the broth:
- Roasted onions and carrots. Fry the vegetables, maybe with minced meat, and add to the soup. Cook until the broth/soup has lightened in color. This will not only help the broth become clearer and lighter, but will also make the dish more filling and flavorful.
- It helps a lot if you put a gauze bag of rice into the boiling soup and cook for 8-10 minutes. After this, rice can be added to the soup or used as a side dish for a second hot dish.
- At the end of cooking, pour 3-4 tablespoons of ice water into the broth.
- Adding a pre-beaten raw egg will help clarify the broth and make it look more appetizing; if you don't like eggs, strain the broth - in both cases the broth will become clearer and more appetizing in appearance.
- If we are talking about soup, grate the cheese and gradually add it to the broth, stirring while doing so. Ideally, it will not lighten the dish, but will hide all its imperfections.
- Carrots will also help. Rinse and peel the carrots as your broth finishes cooking. Cut it into two parts, dry it in a frying pan without oil and add it to soup or broth - after a few minutes the broth will become lighter.
If you follow the rules and tips described above, you can cook a clear and appetizing-looking broth. But keep in mind: if you end up with a cloudy broth and there is no way to clarify it, this will not affect its taste or nutritional quality in any way.