Savory Sauce Using Chicken Feet

Slow-Cooked Chicken Feet: good for bone and joint health!

With more Americans recognizing the health benefits of traditional foods, I now have a non-Asian group of people with whom I dare to share such recipes as this. Such groups of people are followers of Nourishing Traditions (by Sally Fallon) and the Weston A. Price Foundation, and would refer to themselves as "real foodies" (in contrast to consumers of fake foods).

Some people still get turned off by the idea of eating chicken feet, or drinking the bone broth/stock that results from slow cooking them.

I offer here a method by which people can get the readily-absorbable vitamins and  minerals (definitely better than taking supplements because our body recognizes food and knows exactly what to do with the nutrients that come in the right form and proportion so they get assimilated easily).

Slow cooking is a must to dissolve the gelatinous collagen, and vinegar is necessary to leach out the minerals.

These chicken feet came from homegrown chickens. My mother-in-law raises them for us. We have a total of about 80 chickens, and I get all the feet because nobody else wants them.

Here is how I clean the chicken feet (I figure I could also probably ask the slaughterer to chop off the nails).



Ingredients:

For a gallon-bag full of chicken feet, I use the following proportions of ingredients:

1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1/2 cup cider vinegar (you can use red wine vinegar)
1 tbsp oyster sauce (optional)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tsp sea salt (can be adjusted later)
1/4 tsp freshly milled black pepper
5 cloves garlic, minced
3 bay leaves
1 star anise

Instructions:

Place the clean chicken feet in a slow cooker. Mix the rest of the ingredients then pour onto the chicken feet. Cover and cook on low for 7 hours, then stir to redistribute the feet and push them toward the sauce. Cook for two more hours, occasionally stirring.

You can then strain the sauce and cool to remove excess fat, of you might want to keep the fat in the sauce (for better absorption of vitamin D). You may freeze in small containers or pressure can at 11 psi weighted-gauge or 10 psi dial-gauge for 20 mins if using jelly jars.  You can use these as sauce for stir-fries, or to flavor steamed rice.

Beef Sesame Ginger Stir-Fry

Beef Sesame Ginger Stir-Fry

Hubby: Hmmm...this is really good!  Did this recipe come from that White House Chef book?
Me: Yes. You like it? I thought you don't care much for soy sauce-marinated meats.
Hubby: Well, this is really good.  It melts in your mouth. I already like that guy. Will you serve this for our dinner on Thursday with Linda?
Me: Absolutely!

Well, that White House Chef we were talking about was Ariel de Guzman, originally a Filipino US Navy.

This was the first recipe I got from his book although I tweaked some because I used 2 pounds of beef rather than 1.5 pounds, and I added ginger. And it was a hit! I had all ingredients in my pantry (or refrigerator in the case of sesame seeds.

I stir-fried them in batches and then used the mini-wok that I mistakenly ordered (I imagined it
was larger, but I was surprised that it looked more like a bowl) to keep it warm (kept atop the warmer on my stove, covered with the lid). Isn't this cute?

stainless steel mini wok kept it warm

For the beef cut, I used two pounds of "cube steak." (Cube steak is a cut of beef, usually top round or top sirloin, tenderized by fierce pounding with a meat mallet, or use of an electric tenderizer. Many professional cooks insist that regular tenderizing mallets cause too much mashing to produce a proper cube steak, and insist on either using specialized cube steak machines, or manually applying a set of sharp pointed rods to pierce the meat in every direction. This is the most common cut of meat used for chicken fried steak.- from wikipedia_.) I cut the steaks into strips. The result reminded me so much of tapa, although with a touch of Korean/Chinese/Malaysian (whatever!) taste.

whatta super supper!!!

Well, when hubby specifically requests that a certain dish be served to our guests (we will also have my in-laws and another friend that afternoon), then he really likes it so much that he wants to show off my cooking skills. :)


Sesame ginger Beef Stir-Fry
Adapted from:
Ingredients:

2 lbs cube steak, cut in strips

For marinade:

2 tsp white sugar
4 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1&1/2 tbsp sesame oil
2 thumb-size ginger, peeled and sliced

For cooking:

2-3 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tbsp vegetable oil for each batch stir-fried (I was using a medium sized nonstick pan)
3 garlic cloves, cut thinly
1 thumb-size ginger, cut in strips

Instructions:

In a bowl, blend the marinade ingredients well. Toss the beef strips to coat. Cover and let sit in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

On medium heat, dry-roast the sesame seeds until lightly browned and aromatic. Place in a small bowl and set aside.

Increase the heat to high, add vegetable oil and stir-fry the garlic and ginger until lightly browned. Remove and set aside.

By small batches, stir-fry beef until glossy dark-brown in color (beef will turn light brown first then release it's juice and simmer; just continue stir-frying until all juice has evaporated).

In a container kept warm (in an oven or over the warming stovetop), place the cooked batches of beef.

Add more oil to the skillet or wok and stir-fry the next batch.

When all beef is cooked, stir in the fried ginger and garlic. Sprinkle top with sesame seeds.

Serve with rice or mashed potatoes and salad.

Update 4/27/2011:

When I served this for the intended gathering at home, it was a big hit amongst my in-laws and our visitor.

I took some leftover to work the next day, and our unit sec smelled the aroma and got intrigued. I let her taste one piece, and immediately she asked for the recipe. I brought the recipe on Easter Sunday, and told her about the tweaks I made, then she immediately re-typed the whole recipe, made several copies, and distributed them amongst our co-workers, swearing by how good it tasted (and she does not even like ginger, but never detected it in my recipe.).

So there, guaranteed to wow your American friends (there is no question that this will wow Asian friends)!