Chicken Feet

On Saturday I spent the day at one of my dear friend's house making chicken stock from chicken feet. Yes, you read that correctly...chicken feet.

My friend was blessed with an ice chest full of chicken feet from the farmer where she buys her chickens. Chicken feet are supposed to make the best chicken stock. She enlisted my help since this was a rather large (and somewhat unpleasant) task. It was such a joy to work together!

I must admit, the chicken feet are a bit...um....creepy. I actually was not bothered by all of them, but there were a handful of them that were just plain icky.

First we rubbed the feet with kosher salt, and then blanched them. We then put them in cold water in the sink.

Next came the hardest part...peeling the top layer of skin "stuff". It was tedious, and gross, but we had fun working, chatting and listening to uplifting music together.


After awhile, I hardly noticed we were even working on such a "less than pleasant" task. The company was so wonderful, and it always feels good to work on productive things like this.

After we peeled them, we had to cut off the talons. On second thought, that may have been the grossest part!

Once we finished with all of the "unpleasantness" of the first few steps, it was time to make the stock! We tried several different things. One pot we did just plain, another pot with herbs and garlic (that one smelled AMAZING), and this pot with carrots, onion, radishes, salt and peppercorn.

We ended spending the entire day working on this project, and still had more left to do, so I brought those home with me. They are now awaiting me in the garage refrigerator.

With Love,