Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Food, Cooking, and Game Preparation That time of year again...

...for homemade chicken soup, starting with the feet. Add in hearts, gizzards and necks, along with a whole chicken, and in a few days it'll be the best soup ever.

I saved tbe paws from tbe chickens we killed this year. I have to cook tbem to use them. My wife wants notbing to do with them, and the gizzards.

A bit of detail on prep would be appreciated.

Not asking for a friend.

Mazto balls? Love um.

It's pretty basic stuff...just pluck everything that may be above the ankle area, scrub it down to skin and then wash any debris off. From there, you have the base for soup, just put some oil in a pot, brown the feet a bit and put the water, chicken and seasonings in for a long simmer.

And Kreplach! It's like a won ton mixed with a ravioli, with a sauteed beef and onion filling. In soup with horseradish, it's the type of thing that makes one a believer. In something.

Jesus, I thought this would be a thread about Rice Krispie Treats or pumpkin pie or something. Instead it has a pot of chicken feet. Next time put Warning: Gross Parts in the title.

Thanks. We make lots of chicken stock from the backs. Wonderful stuff.

If you've ever watched chickens scratching through a pile of cow or horse manure, there's no way you could eat those feet.............lol. At least not me.

Your frigging killing me.

Our local Jewish Food Festival was cancelled this last June and I'm jonesing hard.

Im guessing your not a devotee of pickled pigs feet as well.

i wonder if this would cure kung flu, better do some research

Gotta give this a whirl

The chicken feet are on my once is enough list.

Only bird flu.

there use to be a big mkt. in china for us made chicken feet. don't know if it still exists but bet it does.

my wife loves fried gizzards. i'm not so positive on them as she is. i like the liver (offal?).

i like a chicken stock made with a big bundle of herbs along with the chicken.

Are them Kreplach anything like pelmeni or manti? Or larger?

Horseradish in chicken soup? Prepared or fresh grated. I've got some to dig soon, another thing to enjoy on a cold day.

Probably not oxtail soup or rump roast either. One knows what those things get covered in, eh?

Do you eat much sausage?

I'm looking forward to seeing the soup!

Makes sense to use those feet for broth. Have seen them for sale, but didn't know what they'd be good for.

For the feet .....

Dry, dust, fry, or skip the dust.

Yeah, really - or hot dogs ?

Just something else for him to be opinionated about !

YMMV

Bit like crispy prawn heads ?

It's probably closest to the size of a pelmeni, but everyone makes them differently. Mine tend to be about twice that size, just because I am impatient and can't deal with the time needed to get everything uniform. They taste great but look like a monkey with ADHD made them. The horseradish for the soup is really simple-just grated very finely, mixed with a bit of salt, water and white vinegar and that's it. To the newcomers, the punch of that simple horseradish preparation will blow the tops of their heads.

It's sorta weird how much Jews and Chinese like the discarded parts, even though there's a huge disconnect in how they love pork and we won't touch it. I love gizzards that are either fried, left under a duck or chicken on a roasting rack and allowed to cook in the drippings as the bird cooks or boiled low and slow over the course of a couple days in stock. When we were kids, everyone called the gizzards "pipyks" and claimed that it was the belly button of the chicken. We knew chickens didn't have belly buttons, but we also thought our folks were trying to get us to eat chicken testicles by calling them belly buttons. When we learned that it was a stomach and not balls, we were all in.

We always ate the gizzards and feet when my grandmother butchered chicken. She was Saxon German from Transylvania. She also turned the pig intestines inside out and scraped them with the back of a knife to make sausage casings.

Eastern Europeans don't waste either. At the farmers market I go to in Ukraine they sell everything but the cluck and squeal.

I like to simmer wild turkey spurs, clean 'em out and peel off all the scale/skin (then put 'em in borax). When i first did so thought it was gonna be gross, instead i left and returned to the kitchen a few minutes later, no issues, it smelled like chicken soup...!

How did it taste?

ya know you can be irritating sometimes

on the rare occasion

hope yer happy

Thank you! I’m very happy and wish the same for you. 👍

Well, I'm going to have to do the horseradish trick to some turkey soup this fall/winter. Or maybe chicken soup the next time I make it.

My horseradish plants are showing signs of starting to die back. Time to dig some.

Do you need any homegrown horseradish? My wife hates it and I'll have way more than I need for my own personal use. I can easily send you some roots.

Thanks, that's very generous! I am in the same position with horseradish. Once it starts growing here, it's like a week. It makes me wonder why it's $6 a pound at the grocery store...

The soup is almost ready and the kreplach are now ready to be boiled. I just realized that the soup looks like something you'd find in a Halloween cauldron. I tried some last night and it was probably my best ever...the feet look gross but they add incredible body to the stock.



All of the solids that are in that stock will be sieved out later today and new carrots and celery, and the currently frozen gizzards, will be added to the last 24 hours of simmer.

The kreplach are totally homemade (well, I didn't slaughter the cow or grow the wheat, but otherwise it's all by hand). I tend to like an eggier and thicker dough, so that's how I make the wrappers, and I am terrible at making things uniform and dainty looking. But they taste great and definitely are a crowd favorite. The rifle isn't usually part of the show but I am getting ready to bring it back to Montana this time and figured it could photobomb the cooking pic.

sounds and looks fantastic...my bread board broke a number of years ago, never replaced it. did find one for a reasonable price on amazon, might have to order it

Old pic or you got snow already?

That zoop does look good! ‘Cept for the paws.

It may be a bit gauche,


but I'd like an invite to dinner someday!

That stuff looks wonderful.

Guessing from the rifle comment you're still in Cali for a bit.

I have to wonder about those horseradish prices too. It's not like it's hard to grow, heck drive from here up through Tulelake and it grows in the ditches there.

Jewish viagra.

Not gauche at all! You're always welcome, though I'm not in CA more often than not (I go back to MT on Tuesday). I have a couple of cousins who live near Lake Shasta (Lakehead, specifically) and I need to make a run up with our soul food (chicken soup, kreplach, kishk, pickles, etc.) one of these days, so if you're nearby I'd be happy to bring some extra.

Enjoy the trip to your cousins' place and the visit there too. We're not traveling much right now, and that's about a 4 hr drive to the west of here, but thanks for the offer.

Perhaps some other time, or if you ever drive east and make a detour thru the CA Outback. You are welcome to stop by here and we can find something to eat.

Looks wonderful !

Love me some low n slow, home cooking.