Go to the Recipe: Ultimate Chicken Bouillon Cubes
Please tell me a veggie one is in the works! Or please tell me how I can do something similar using the veggie stock recipe already on the website.
The biggest issue is the gelatin. There isn't a really good option for veggie. I was going to do some trials on reducing the veg Demi and setting it with agar. But that will be a bit down the road until we get to it.
Are ground skinless chicken thighs a common thing to find in US supermarkets? I don't have a grinder or grinder attachment for my mixer and don't really want to buy one. I have seen packages of ground chicken but assume it's some mashup of parts, not specifically thigh meat. Would running whole boneless skinless thighs through a food processor a few times work?
The link to one ounce ice cube trays shows that the product is no longer available. How much larger is a standard tray? Like many, I no longer have ice cube trays in my home.
How about a vegetable stock but that still uses gelatin? (There's kosher fish gelatin, so that could be suitable for some vegetarians) Also, can chicken breast be subbed here? boneless skinless thighs cost almost 2x what breast does here, which is already quite expensive... (cost of living here, man)
You should be able to ask the butcher to just grind them for you, at least around here you can.
Very excited to try this and thank you Kyl Haselbauer! Curious; is it possible to clarify the broth from this bouillon cube using the same method as chefsteps consommé?
Are you wanting to try before it is reduced and thickened or after it is reconstituted? I would say yes to a broth that you are making from the cube, then follow the process from the consome.
I have used both, the thighs just yielded a deeper flavor. But both were very similar. And here in Seattle it is cheaper...
Any size silicone tray will work for freezing and storage, we just went with that size since the weight was perfect for 2 cups of broth. ultimately use what you can get and follow the weight used for what ever recipe you are making.
Can I use half the initial 2kg of water? It will save on reduction time at the end (and I have a Thermomix so it will be fine re a slow stir for 1.5 hours so nothing catches)
For the pressure cooker portion, what would be the instant equivalent in terms of time/pressure
Can't wait to give this a go.
How much sheet gelatin would you use? The same weight as powdered?
Correct, same weight.
High pressure for 30 minutes.
As long as you fully cover the contents it works, we just found better extraction happened with 2kg of water.
That would work ok. I would pulse it though and not make a puree.
Great recipe. May I ask why you add the gelatin before the reduction instead of at the end? Does it make a difference in the end product? It seems to me that reducing a broth which so much gelatin will increase chances of scorching.
And on an unrelated topic: I followed your Christmas gifts recommendations and treated myself to the Ninja ice cream machine. Fantastic buy, thanks. Any chance for Chefsteps recipes (or even better a parametric recipe) developed specifically for the machine? Thanks
I have an 8qt Kuhn Rikon. Any issues in doubling this recipe?
Update: absolutely not. I doubled it and am simmering it in ly 12qt stock pot for 90 minutes.
I double it all the time
Just can’t use the pressure cooker. Way too much stuff! Simple enough without though
This is fantastic
If I have some stock that I made a while ago and keep in the freezer, and I want to turn it into cubes, should I change anything or just jump straight to "3. Season and reduce stock"?
Jump to step 3
Why not use the chicken bones? That's (one of) the best bits about making stock is using a potentially waste ingredient
Kyl, I made this again and got a little lazy with the reduction. Probably a little more fat this time around from the chicken, but it definitely split. So I poured it into my defatter when there was around 900g left, poured the good stuff back into the pot and threw away the fat and continued reducing to 300g. Came out perfectly. No idea if the thighs were fattier or what, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference if I strain the fat off. 🤷♂️
Maybe only so much fat can emulsify and the rest sits on top so straining it off doesn’t hurt the actual product because it’s exactly the same? Or I split it and it doesn’t really matter as long as you take it out. Or MAYBE I’m thinking way too much about this.
By the way I use a fat separator with a bottom release ane it’s the best thing ever.
+1 on the veggie one!
I make chicken stock on a regular basis out of roast chicken carcasses and other bones, but the bags of stock were starting to build up in my freezer! This was great advice for how to boil it down and be able to store it in a much more compact form. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, but it’s a great trick, and I’m ecstatic about having a more usable form (2 C or less for each cube) and the extra freezer space! I just converted 12C of fresh turkey stock and 16 cups of frozen chicken stock into a manageable number of frozen bullion cubes!
I used to make vegetable stock on a regular basis out of vegetable scraps, but it also started to build up faster than I could use it. I’m going to thaw out those bags, add some gelatin, reduce them, and I think I’ll have those as a more readily usable source of flavor. Yay!
YEASSS
Question here from Denver. I have an amazing, and robust Asian grocery mart where things like chicken feet and bones are easy and inexpensive. Can I avoid or reduce the gelatin by using said products and making the stock with these things... Fwiw, I've made stock a million ways and the best I have ever made at home is simply oven set to 190 overnight in a dutch oven, chicken parts, bones, fat anything I have right in the pot with not so carefully crafted amounts of Anything but what I have on hand. I am wondering if I can do this with these stocks, or bouillon cubes, and upping skin and bones for them all to avoid the gelatin completely
If you already have a goto gelatinous stock, I would just reduce to the same thickness and store in the freezer.
Wouldn't it make more sense to add the gelatin after the stock is reduced? And if the reduction is done in a non-stick sauce pan, there is no need for constant stirring.
Can i make this without MSG?
I have a question. This and other recipes tell you to reduce until you have a certain amount, in this recipe "stock is reduced to 500 g (2 cups; 1-inch depth in the pot), about 1 hour." How do you determine when you have the correct amount? Also wouldn’t a depth of one inch depend on the width of the container?
I have a list of the weight of all my pots, pans, mixing bowls. I put it on the scale and subtract the pressure cooker weight until I got 500g. I would just weigh your pot before putting in the liquid and reducing.
My plan is pre-pour the target volume, in water, to my reduction pan, and use the water line to make my own depth gauge. Haven't done this yet, but one idea is to notch a wooden skewer. Now that I think about it, a food safe ruler that can stand the heat (stainless maybe?) seems like an even better solution. Then I could just note mm to ml conversions somewhere for all my pots/pans.
Of course. You can make it with out salt as well and just season when you use to how you prefer.
You could do that too, it's just easier to disperse the gelatin first before the reduction. You can still use a non stick pan if you prefer, but you can still scorch it with that type of pan. It will just be easier to clean up if you do.
i’d try cubing the chicken thighs into 1” pieces, par-freezing, then pulsing in the processor a few times until you get pea-sized pieces.
can I use a costco rotisserie chicken with this recipe? like bones and leftover parts like skin
Its worth a try.
I usually put a towel on my scale before I turn it on, weight my empty pot and then reduce to the pot+contents weight accordingly. This has worked well. Did the same for my beef stock bouillon cubes and doing chicken cubes currently. Works super well. I always have to remind myself a gram here or there won't affect things so greatly in this type of application.
If you aren't using a pressure cooker do you simmer for 1.5 hours with the stock covered or uncovered?
Uncovered.
And for the last reducution to caramel consistency, would it still be about 15 minutes time or we're looking at double that time?
(I don't have a scale big enough to measure with tge pots on, just smaller more precise ones...)
Thanks in advance! 😀
Hi JB, take the final weight of the batch and measure it using water, then pour that water in the pot. That will give you a good idea of what your final volume should look like.
Super. Thanks for the tip Kyl!
This technique worked great! I like that I get consistent results every time vs making stock with carcasses, and my freezer has so much extra space (for one batch I took all the random mason jars of stock I’d been hoarding and reduced those too).
I’m curious whether ya’ll tried dehydrating the reduced stock into a powder and then just mixing in powdered gelatin. Not worth all the time/effort, or maybe the presence of fat was problematic?
Well I did freeze dry some of the finished cubes, but since they are only about 20% liquid they didn't want to powder up again and got pretty hygroscopic and gummy. I how ever did not try reducing the stock with out gelatin and freeze drying at that point. That does seem like a fun step to try out.
Kyl,
Did you try to make this without browning the chicken? Get closer to a white stock?
Sure did, it does how ever still brown a bit durning the reduction.
Worth making? Having a brown and a white on hand depending on the application could be useful?
Hey - curious why you omit bones and use gelatin? Couldn't the same affect be achieve using bones and cartilege?
First, this is one of my go to recipes. Now I have homemade cubes of bouillon from various meats all the time and so much better than the store! Overtime I've made it my own by using chicken or pork bones/carcass, basically anything that is on hand.
But now I need a food science question answered... Is there a reason not to just throw the gelatin, salt and the MSG in the pressure cooker to start?
The only reason I avoid it is for accuracy, you don't know how much of the salt, msg, and gelatin will absorb and stay in the meat, veggies, and bones.
You call for using "900 g "Chicken thighs, (boneless, skinless) ground," but when I clicked on the hypertext link it told me what a thigh was, but not how to grind them. I was guessing you used a meat grinder, but the photo of the result didn't look like what I'd expect from a meat grinder. Do you use a food processor?
Hi John, sorry those product pages are in need of an update. We typically just get the ground chicken from the store, pre-ground. Just like burger meat. If you cant get that then yes you can use the food processor, you are just trying to help break it down.
I'm wondering what quantity of gelatinous chicken parts (i.e. feet, wing tips, backbones, etc.) could be added to the mix in lieu of using powdered gelatin? I've used a similar technique for veal stock where I started with a hefty amount of veal bones, aromatics, and water and simmered the whole mass overnight, then subsequently strained and boiled down into a thick blob, chilled, and finished by cutting into pieces and freezing for later deployment. Thanks for any advice.
So the gelatin really is just a hack instead of using the whole carcass and feet, like we would do in a restaurant setting. If you added a pound of feet I would say you would be close. But would need to cook the mix for closer to 1.5 hours.
These ultimate bouillon recipes are probably my favorite thing on chefsteps. I keep the pork, chicken and beef in my freezer at all times. I'm also thinking about using the same technique for amushroom/vegetable bouillon cubes. Any alterations that you think should be made for something like that?
While I have absolutely enjoyed having both the seasoned and unseasoned cubes in my freezer, and am using a traditional stock as my base since I can take advantage of the whole chicken for other purposes, but am still adding the gelatin for extra texture and thickening, I have always been curious if the gelatin is the variable that allows one to reconstitute a 2L stock into a 4L stock?
