Japanese Tsuba by Georg Oeder, 1916
Qi 氣
"Before the world was, before the multitude of things, the primordial universe was a vast undifferentiated ocean of potential - a boundless 'no thing' known as wuji. This eternal cosmos, the origin of all events, beings, and things, is infused with a subtle, pervasive invisible resource - Qi. Deep within this endless, seamless pool of no actualities and infinite possibilities stirrs an impulse, which excoted the 'no thing' to differentiate and become 'something'. Suddenly light emerged in contrast to darkness. Emptiness and material were born and permeated with the ever-present Qi. First, in its becoming there were cosmic gases, stars, and planets. Much, much later came the living beings.
Even now the stars, the planets, the elements, the plants, the creatures, and outselves; all of these move within and are penetrated and influenced by that original field of Qi. Qi is what causes the planets to maintain their orbits around the sun. It is the Qi that causes each snowflake to be unique and the Qi that shifts the moon phases and the tides. Qi sustains our health and the Qi is the force behind intelligence and emotions. Qi is the vitalith that causes the evolution of a tiny embryo of dividing cells to mature into the full-size human. The longing of the Qi of the earth to reach up and merge with the Qi of heaven drives a small sprout out of the seed - upward in spite of the force of gravity to become a great tree. Qi is known from the expressions that it embodies: the process of healing, the creativity that generates poetry and art, the transformation of tadpoles into frogs and caterpillars into butterflies. Qi is life force, energy, and consciousness - it is the essence behind all effects, influences, and events as well as elements, materials, and objects."
- Chang Yi Hsiang
A Paen To Penicillin: An Antibiotics User Guide
It feels dirty and debaucherous publicly admitting that as a holistic health practitioner, I took the devil’s juice, I sipped the nectar of the underworld, I drew a pentagram in the crossroads and traded my corporeal soul and $25 dollars at CVS with Old Bones Jones for a chance at beating tonsillitis and decimating my microbiome.
I hadn’t needed antibiotics for years, but when I returned from an international flight late last year with a lymph node swollen to the size of golfball and a fever of 102, I did not have the luxury of treating this diligently on my own in a time frame that worked with my bonkers schedule. I needed to jump back into the saddle pronto because I have a lot of people that depend on me, as do you, likely. We are mothers and creators and radicals and care takers and tenders. There is no rest for the wicked.
One of the most frequently asked questions in my practice is “should I go on antibiotics?” While the answer is highly individualized, and most of us acupuncturists have a slew of herbal warriors with the potency and panache to kick most pathogens to the curb, herbs are not always the most elegant solution. I take the time with each of my patients to talk about their options and how to gracefully navigate each choice. After all the cards are all on the table, I let them decide, shame free and without remorse. Because that is how medicine is practiced in a feminist model of choice and autonomy. En masse, there are steps you can take to make either choice empowering, and walk away from the whole experience feeling lusty, potent, and virile.
Step one is consider waiting. If you are not in any clear and present danger, and you are under the tutelage of an esteemed herbalist or functional doctor, this is a solid approach. As my patients often remind me, beating your first infection with herbs and food is an initiation. You learn that everything you were ever taught about your body is wrong, that you are filled with adamantine strength and protean prowess if given the right tools and conditions. This approach forces you to be tender, scale back, and feel what it's like to nurture yourself back to life. You might have to de-escalate your schedule. Phew! What a relief! Or maybe your worst nightmare. But once you succeed in your pursuit of the plague, you have tools in your back pocket for any time that ol’ pestilence comes a’knocking at your door.
Sometimes you take the herbs and do the sleep and kick the stress, and you STILL get sicker. Step two is don’t fear the reaper. Those of us that have eschewed a life of Big Pharma get VERY riled up at the thought of taking antibiotics. Is it a betrayal of our values? Is it lazy, irresponsible, avoidant? AM I UNDOING 10 YEARS OF SEEDING MY GUT WITH KOMBUCHA, ARTISANAL SAUERKRAUT, AND AFFIRMATIONS THAT I RADIATE HEALTH FROM THE INSIDE OUT?
Taking pharmaceuticals is NOT giving up your power and conceding to the military-industrial complex. You are not a shill of big pharma, you are not a horsewoman of the apocalypse, you are not complicit in the mass destruction of all beneficial microbial life, and, most importantly, you are not a butterfly. You are an almighty warrior priestess whose microbiome is an iron-clad vault of perpetual poetry in motion. Your microbiome is constantly evolving, and if you are not using antibiotics on the regular, it will adapt. The number one factor that determines what microbes live in your gut (and which ones die off) is your daily diet. Make a point to eat a low sugar diet free of unprocessed foods and seed your gut with prebiotics from fibrous greens. Drink a little bone broth, why dontcha! And of course, take probiotics along with your meds (albeit at least two hours apart from them), and keep taking probiotics for a minimum of 6 months (though truly we should be taking them all the time). I like two weeks of a very herculean CFU probie like Designs For Health ProbioMed 250, followed by my standard probiotic, Megasporebiotic from Microbiome Labs. If you are prone to yeast infections, you might want to do probiotic suppositories while you are downing your antibiotics. If you are concerned about the impact of antibiotics on your liver, you can take Antronex from Standard Process at 1 3xday during your course, continuing for a few weeks after. It also helps manage the dreaded ‘die-off effect’ that can happen with antibiotics like Amoxicillin.
Step three is don’t shame yourself for not being strong enough to fight the infection by non-pharmaceutical means. Shame is the enemy of health! It’s a tool of the oppressors! Shame keeps us trapped and small and holds us back from evolving and growing. I will never shame you! You did what you had to do. We are all just trying to survive. I love you.
I hadn’t needed antibiotics for years, but when I returned from an international flight late last year with a lymph node swollen to the size of golfball and a fever of 102, I did not have the luxury of treating this diligently on my own in a time frame that worked with my bonkers schedule. I needed to jump back into the saddle pronto because I have a lot of people that depend on me, as do you, likely. We are mothers and creators and radicals and care takers and tenders. There is no rest for the wicked.
One of the most frequently asked questions in my practice is “should I go on antibiotics?” While the answer is highly individualized, and most of us acupuncturists have a slew of herbal warriors with the potency and panache to kick most pathogens to the curb, herbs are not always the most elegant solution. I take the time with each of my patients to talk about their options and how to gracefully navigate each choice. After all the cards are all on the table, I let them decide, shame free and without remorse. Because that is how medicine is practiced in a feminist model of choice and autonomy. En masse, there are steps you can take to make either choice empowering, and walk away from the whole experience feeling lusty, potent, and virile.
Step one is consider waiting. If you are not in any clear and present danger, and you are under the tutelage of an esteemed herbalist or functional doctor, this is a solid approach. As my patients often remind me, beating your first infection with herbs and food is an initiation. You learn that everything you were ever taught about your body is wrong, that you are filled with adamantine strength and protean prowess if given the right tools and conditions. This approach forces you to be tender, scale back, and feel what it's like to nurture yourself back to life. You might have to de-escalate your schedule. Phew! What a relief! Or maybe your worst nightmare. But once you succeed in your pursuit of the plague, you have tools in your back pocket for any time that ol’ pestilence comes a’knocking at your door.
Sometimes you take the herbs and do the sleep and kick the stress, and you STILL get sicker. Step two is don’t fear the reaper. Those of us that have eschewed a life of Big Pharma get VERY riled up at the thought of taking antibiotics. Is it a betrayal of our values? Is it lazy, irresponsible, avoidant? AM I UNDOING 10 YEARS OF SEEDING MY GUT WITH KOMBUCHA, ARTISANAL SAUERKRAUT, AND AFFIRMATIONS THAT I RADIATE HEALTH FROM THE INSIDE OUT?
Taking pharmaceuticals is NOT giving up your power and conceding to the military-industrial complex. You are not a shill of big pharma, you are not a horsewoman of the apocalypse, you are not complicit in the mass destruction of all beneficial microbial life, and, most importantly, you are not a butterfly. You are an almighty warrior priestess whose microbiome is an iron-clad vault of perpetual poetry in motion. Your microbiome is constantly evolving, and if you are not using antibiotics on the regular, it will adapt. The number one factor that determines what microbes live in your gut (and which ones die off) is your daily diet. Make a point to eat a low sugar diet free of unprocessed foods and seed your gut with prebiotics from fibrous greens. Drink a little bone broth, why dontcha! And of course, take probiotics along with your meds (albeit at least two hours apart from them), and keep taking probiotics for a minimum of 6 months (though truly we should be taking them all the time). I like two weeks of a very herculean CFU probie like Designs For Health ProbioMed 250, followed by my standard probiotic, Megasporebiotic from Microbiome Labs. If you are prone to yeast infections, you might want to do probiotic suppositories while you are downing your antibiotics. If you are concerned about the impact of antibiotics on your liver, you can take Antronex from Standard Process at 1 3xday during your course, continuing for a few weeks after. It also helps manage the dreaded ‘die-off effect’ that can happen with antibiotics like Amoxicillin.
Step three is don’t shame yourself for not being strong enough to fight the infection by non-pharmaceutical means. Shame is the enemy of health! It’s a tool of the oppressors! Shame keeps us trapped and small and holds us back from evolving and growing. I will never shame you! You did what you had to do. We are all just trying to survive. I love you.
Qi Finessing:
Chinese Herbal Bone Broth
Never does a week go by in our household where the scraps of our epicurean labors aren’t heaped in a giant enamelware pot and stewed for hours while we mill about the house. We’re fanatical about our bone-collecting, surreptitiously slipping chicken carcasses into napkins under the table, asking waiters to box up our goat bones after indulging in a hearty pot of Birria De Chivo Goat Stew. The result of our rampant scrap-mongering is a rich, profoundly nourishing bone broth, imbued with golden melted life-force, exceedingly nourishing to the illustrious Three Treasures of Chinese Medicine:
Jing, our Essence, the source of life, the basis for all growth, development, and sexuality.
Qi, our energy, giving us the ability to activate and move our bodies, whilst protecting us against external and internal pathogenic factors.
Shen, our inner light, the vitality behind Jing and Qi, the mental and spiritual force that shapes our personality and spirit.
Bone Broth- or ‘stock’, depending our your particular cultural milieu- is a pan-cultural old world panacea, utilitarian kitchen alchemy transforming vegetable scraps and bones into pure nutritional gold. Heaps of vegetables, herbs, and leftover bones are pragmatically piled in a pot, and left to simmer slowly for long periods of time, extracting every morsel of function and flavor. The resulting infusion is a gently potent brew, teeming with trenchant, bio-available nutrition, easy to digest and suitable for all matter of medicine, both preventative AND curative. A complex, rich mosaic of variegated flavors, it is also an opulent addition to stews, soups, sauces, poaching liquid, grains, beans, and porridge, transforming blasé cooking water into a savory swill. It nourishes our tendons, ligaments, skin, bones, and blood, keeping us limber and spry, with an assassin-worthy immune system. As a grounding force in our otherwise hypersonic, twenty-first century lives, it forces us to spend a few hours a week at home, tending to our hearth fire. If I seem a little in love with it, it’s because I am. I get to melt bones in a giant pot, like a surly wizard necromancer.
Many moons ago, before I was religious about my bone broth, I was stricken by a persnickety set of symptoms that left me vacillating between a sprightly 20-something yoga athlete and a knobby, decrepit old crone. One day, I would be handstanding like nobody’s business, and the next day, I could barely touch my toes, plagued with spells of tightness, pain, and numbness, accompanied by bouts of sleep seizures that made me feel ancient, neurotic, and utterly powerless. After getting diagnosed with a vague autoimmune disease, delivered with a despondent, helpless send-off from the Western Medical Hegemony, my homegrown recovery was rooted in cutting out all inflammatory foods (gluten, sugar, ungainly processed rubbish), and going the way of old man Hippocrates by using food as my medicine. Through Traditional Chinese Medicine and the wisdom of thee Weston A. Price Foundation, I discovered the ancient magic of bone broth, and have never looked back. Years later, I am symptom free (though on occasion, I go to town on Chocolate Stout and homemade bread), and enjoying all sorts of bendy melee on the regular. And really, despite seeing tons of under-the-weather patients daily, have developed a super-human resistance to colds and flu. I make my cauldron of bone broth weekly, and drink a cup a day, increasing in times of debauchery, disorder, or debilitation. I suggest this to everyone that walks through my door, as I’ve seen countless miracles in managing all matter of chronic disease.
If broth seems too good to be true, it’s because it is. Our leery, infirmed culture has taught us to be inherently disdainful of anything that seems ‘too good to be true’, a silly idiom I’ve always despised for shading the world in a Saturnine hue, thwarting the everyday magic of simple things, and propagating the ‘snake-oil’ mythos that impedes the advancement of traditional medicines. I much prefer the wisdom of wise old Yeats, who knew that “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
Why is bone broth so beautiful? The venerable Dr. Mercola of The Mercola Institute drops some science:
Helps heal and seal your gut, and promotes healthy digestion: The gelatin found in bone broth is a hydrophilic colloid. It attracts and holds liquids, including digestive juices, thereby supporting proper digestion.
Inhibits infection caused by cold and flu viruses: A study published over a decade ago found that chicken soup indeed has medicinal qualities, significantly mitigating infection.
Reduces joint pain and inflammation, courtesy of chondroitin sulphates, glucosamine, and other compounds extracted from the boiled down cartilage. (Aside: glucosamine and chondroitin are usually sold over the counter as fancy supplements for arthritis).
Fights inflammation: Amino acids such as glycine, proline, and arginine all have anti-inflammatory effects. Arginine, for example, has been found to be particularly beneficial for the treatment of sepsis (whole-body inflammation). Glycine also has calming effects, which may help you sleep better.
Promotes strong, healthy bones: As mentioned above, bone broth contains high amounts of calcium, magnesium, and other nutrients that play an important role in healthy bone formation.
Promotes healthy hair and nail growth, thanks to the ample gelatin in the broth.
Many moons ago, before I was religious about my bone broth, I was stricken by a persnickety set of symptoms that left me vacillating between a sprightly 20-something yoga athlete and a knobby, decrepit old crone. One day, I would be handstanding like nobody’s business, and the next day, I could barely touch my toes, plagued with spells of tightness, pain, and numbness, accompanied by bouts of sleep seizures that made me feel ancient, neurotic, and utterly powerless. After getting diagnosed with a vague autoimmune disease, delivered with a despondent, helpless send-off from the Western Medical Hegemony, my homegrown recovery was rooted in cutting out all inflammatory foods (gluten, sugar, ungainly processed rubbish), and going the way of old man Hippocrates by using food as my medicine. Through Traditional Chinese Medicine and the wisdom of thee Weston A. Price Foundation, I discovered the ancient magic of bone broth, and have never looked back. Years later, I am symptom free (though on occasion, I go to town on Chocolate Stout and homemade bread), and enjoying all sorts of bendy melee on the regular. And really, despite seeing tons of under-the-weather patients daily, have developed a super-human resistance to colds and flu. I make my cauldron of bone broth weekly, and drink a cup a day, increasing in times of debauchery, disorder, or debilitation. I suggest this to everyone that walks through my door, as I’ve seen countless miracles in managing all matter of chronic disease.
If broth seems too good to be true, it’s because it is. Our leery, infirmed culture has taught us to be inherently disdainful of anything that seems ‘too good to be true’, a silly idiom I’ve always despised for shading the world in a Saturnine hue, thwarting the everyday magic of simple things, and propagating the ‘snake-oil’ mythos that impedes the advancement of traditional medicines. I much prefer the wisdom of wise old Yeats, who knew that “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
Why is bone broth so beautiful? The venerable Dr. Mercola of The Mercola Institute drops some science:
Helps heal and seal your gut, and promotes healthy digestion: The gelatin found in bone broth is a hydrophilic colloid. It attracts and holds liquids, including digestive juices, thereby supporting proper digestion.
Inhibits infection caused by cold and flu viruses: A study published over a decade ago found that chicken soup indeed has medicinal qualities, significantly mitigating infection.
Reduces joint pain and inflammation, courtesy of chondroitin sulphates, glucosamine, and other compounds extracted from the boiled down cartilage. (Aside: glucosamine and chondroitin are usually sold over the counter as fancy supplements for arthritis).
Fights inflammation: Amino acids such as glycine, proline, and arginine all have anti-inflammatory effects. Arginine, for example, has been found to be particularly beneficial for the treatment of sepsis (whole-body inflammation). Glycine also has calming effects, which may help you sleep better.
Promotes strong, healthy bones: As mentioned above, bone broth contains high amounts of calcium, magnesium, and other nutrients that play an important role in healthy bone formation.
Promotes healthy hair and nail growth, thanks to the ample gelatin in the broth.
What You’ll Need
Large Stainless Steel Stock Pot or Crock Pot
Roughly two pounds of organic chicken, beef, lamb, or fish bones, procured from a local butcher, or culled from recent feastings and stored in the freezer until needed. If you plan on making a habit out of your stock making shenanigans (which you should!), I suggest finding a sympathetic meat peddler to bro-down with in your hood. You can peruse sustainably raised local livestock on Local Harvest, or check out the CrossFit gyms in your area, as many CSA’s are starting to offer gym delivery.
¼ cup vinegar: Of paramount importance, for extracting the minerals from the bones into your broth.
A Mirepoix, consisting of 1 coarsely chopped onion, 2 carrots, and 2 sticks of celery.
Other coarsely chopped vegetables and assorted kitchen detritus: Perhaps the most admiral facet of broth is its commonsensical use of otherwise discarded cooking debris, with a peasant zeal otherwise reserved for Bruce Springsteen. Yellowing parsley, disfigured carrots, celery tops, blood-red chard stalks, onion skins, the graveyard of your heroic juicing efforts, haunted specters from the crisper… they all get their day in the sun. Your ingredients will be subject to the capricious nature of your weekly eating habits, producing a protean olio that is romantically un-reproducible from one week to the next. We keep a jar in the freezer that we fill with our forsaken vegetable fragments just for this purpose. My mainstays for flavor are 1 bunch of parsley, 2 quartered potatoes, a few hearty sprigs of rosemary and thyme from the garden, and a few cloves of garlic.
1 tsp black peppercorns
Fresh, cold water
I love to add a smidgen of Chinese herbs to my brew, to enhance and direct the healing vectors of my broth. 2-3 ounces of each herb should do the trick, always being intuitive with your needs and working with what you have on hand, like the cunning egalitarian Kitchen Witch that you are. These folks are mainstays in my cabinet, and on any given Sunday, I may sprinkle a smattering of the following into my cauldron:
A handful of Dang Shen/Codonopsis Root: To help strengthen the qi, counter mental and physical fatigue, build blood, and nourish body fluids.
Perhaps 5-10 slices of Huang Qi/Astragalus Root: To boost the immune system and strengthen qi, ensconcing one in protective energy that helps prevent illness due to external influences.
Certainly always a knuckle or so of Sheng Jiang/Fresh Ginger Root: To stoke the digestive fires and stimulate the circulatory system.
A pinch of Xi Yang Shen/American Ginseng Root: Boosting gentler Ginseng tendrils than the Chinese or Korean varietals, an admirable addition to combat fatigue and stress, whilst improving athletic and mental performance.
Dong Quai/Chinese Angelica Root: The ultimate femme tonic, invaluable for strengthening the blood, nourishing the reproductive organs, regulating menstruation, and alleviating period pain.
Shan Yao/Chinese Wild Yam: A lovely anti-inflammatory that tonifies qi, nourishes yin, and strengthens the spleen, lungs, and kidneys, particularly puissant after a long-term illness.
A sprinkling of Shan Zhu Yu/Dogwood Fruit: An excellent astringent herb and reproductive tonic that strengthens the liver and kidneys, while securing leakage of vital essence.
6 or so strands of dried Dong Chong Xia Cao/Cordyceps Mushroom: My most favorite herb in the Chinese pharmacopeia, Cordyceps is hailed on the street as the Himalayan Viagra for its revered ability to increase stamina, sex drive, virility, strength, brainpower, athletic prowess & focus. It’s a favorite of Chinese Olympians, so you know it’s top shelf.
Roughly two pounds of organic chicken, beef, lamb, or fish bones, procured from a local butcher, or culled from recent feastings and stored in the freezer until needed. If you plan on making a habit out of your stock making shenanigans (which you should!), I suggest finding a sympathetic meat peddler to bro-down with in your hood. You can peruse sustainably raised local livestock on Local Harvest, or check out the CrossFit gyms in your area, as many CSA’s are starting to offer gym delivery.
¼ cup vinegar: Of paramount importance, for extracting the minerals from the bones into your broth.
A Mirepoix, consisting of 1 coarsely chopped onion, 2 carrots, and 2 sticks of celery.
Other coarsely chopped vegetables and assorted kitchen detritus: Perhaps the most admiral facet of broth is its commonsensical use of otherwise discarded cooking debris, with a peasant zeal otherwise reserved for Bruce Springsteen. Yellowing parsley, disfigured carrots, celery tops, blood-red chard stalks, onion skins, the graveyard of your heroic juicing efforts, haunted specters from the crisper… they all get their day in the sun. Your ingredients will be subject to the capricious nature of your weekly eating habits, producing a protean olio that is romantically un-reproducible from one week to the next. We keep a jar in the freezer that we fill with our forsaken vegetable fragments just for this purpose. My mainstays for flavor are 1 bunch of parsley, 2 quartered potatoes, a few hearty sprigs of rosemary and thyme from the garden, and a few cloves of garlic.
1 tsp black peppercorns
Fresh, cold water
I love to add a smidgen of Chinese herbs to my brew, to enhance and direct the healing vectors of my broth. 2-3 ounces of each herb should do the trick, always being intuitive with your needs and working with what you have on hand, like the cunning egalitarian Kitchen Witch that you are. These folks are mainstays in my cabinet, and on any given Sunday, I may sprinkle a smattering of the following into my cauldron:
A handful of Dang Shen/Codonopsis Root: To help strengthen the qi, counter mental and physical fatigue, build blood, and nourish body fluids.
Perhaps 5-10 slices of Huang Qi/Astragalus Root: To boost the immune system and strengthen qi, ensconcing one in protective energy that helps prevent illness due to external influences.
Certainly always a knuckle or so of Sheng Jiang/Fresh Ginger Root: To stoke the digestive fires and stimulate the circulatory system.
A pinch of Xi Yang Shen/American Ginseng Root: Boosting gentler Ginseng tendrils than the Chinese or Korean varietals, an admirable addition to combat fatigue and stress, whilst improving athletic and mental performance.
Dong Quai/Chinese Angelica Root: The ultimate femme tonic, invaluable for strengthening the blood, nourishing the reproductive organs, regulating menstruation, and alleviating period pain.
Shan Yao/Chinese Wild Yam: A lovely anti-inflammatory that tonifies qi, nourishes yin, and strengthens the spleen, lungs, and kidneys, particularly puissant after a long-term illness.
A sprinkling of Shan Zhu Yu/Dogwood Fruit: An excellent astringent herb and reproductive tonic that strengthens the liver and kidneys, while securing leakage of vital essence.
6 or so strands of dried Dong Chong Xia Cao/Cordyceps Mushroom: My most favorite herb in the Chinese pharmacopeia, Cordyceps is hailed on the street as the Himalayan Viagra for its revered ability to increase stamina, sex drive, virility, strength, brainpower, athletic prowess & focus. It’s a favorite of Chinese Olympians, so you know it’s top shelf.
How To
1. Break your precious bones up into smaller pieces (ideally about 3 inches long), with kitchen scissors or a fun weapon. This will increase the surface area of bone exposed to the water, giving you a higher nutrient yield.
2. If using beef bones, you’ll want to roast your bones until browned at 400 degrees F for roughly 60-90 minutes to add richness.
3. Place the bones in your stockpot or crockpot, along with your vegetables, scraps, peppercorns, and Chinese herbs. Cover with cold water, adding a few fingers for good measure. Add your splash of vinegar and cover with a lid.
4. Slowly bring your stock to a boil, then reduce to low and simmer gently for 6-48 hours (yes, I know 48 hours is a very daunting commitment in our breakneck world). I love to use a crockpot, because you can just pile all your business in, turn on high until boiling, reduce to low, and then promptly forget about it whilst retiring to your bedchamber for the evening. It’s so egalitarian, I can hardly stand it. If using a stockpot, you can use the following guidelines (and your own pending commitments) to gauge cooking time: 6-48 hours for chicken bones, and 12-72 hours for beef and other meats.
5. Give your bone broth the occasional shout-out during simmering, checking to see that there is always a fair amount of water covering your accoutrements.
6. At some point, you will inevitably notice a thick, insalubrious scum rising to the top of your broth. Many folks will trick you into thinking you MUST skim this off routinely, to clarify the product and make a finer tasting brew. To this I say, “ain’t nobody got time for that!” The whole skimming off the top thing is sadly overrated, as testing has shown that this “scum”, while unsightly, contains nothing harmful. If you wanna be fancy, go right ahead. Otherwise, fret not!
7. When you’re ready to call it quits, remove your bones with a slotted spoon, discard, and strain the rest through a colander into a large bowl. If you’re feeling spry, you can strain again through a sieve or cheesecloth to achieve an extra-fancy, clear broth. Chill your luscious potion of collagen and gelatin in the fridge, until the fat congeals and rises to the top. If you want a liquid broth for cooking purposes, you can skim the fat off and store the remaining liquid in the fridge for roundabout a week’s time. However, if you want your broth to drink like a rich toddy of hot buttered rum, I say leave the fat on (we do), and enjoy your broth like molten velvet bone mojo.
2. If using beef bones, you’ll want to roast your bones until browned at 400 degrees F for roughly 60-90 minutes to add richness.
3. Place the bones in your stockpot or crockpot, along with your vegetables, scraps, peppercorns, and Chinese herbs. Cover with cold water, adding a few fingers for good measure. Add your splash of vinegar and cover with a lid.
4. Slowly bring your stock to a boil, then reduce to low and simmer gently for 6-48 hours (yes, I know 48 hours is a very daunting commitment in our breakneck world). I love to use a crockpot, because you can just pile all your business in, turn on high until boiling, reduce to low, and then promptly forget about it whilst retiring to your bedchamber for the evening. It’s so egalitarian, I can hardly stand it. If using a stockpot, you can use the following guidelines (and your own pending commitments) to gauge cooking time: 6-48 hours for chicken bones, and 12-72 hours for beef and other meats.
5. Give your bone broth the occasional shout-out during simmering, checking to see that there is always a fair amount of water covering your accoutrements.
6. At some point, you will inevitably notice a thick, insalubrious scum rising to the top of your broth. Many folks will trick you into thinking you MUST skim this off routinely, to clarify the product and make a finer tasting brew. To this I say, “ain’t nobody got time for that!” The whole skimming off the top thing is sadly overrated, as testing has shown that this “scum”, while unsightly, contains nothing harmful. If you wanna be fancy, go right ahead. Otherwise, fret not!
7. When you’re ready to call it quits, remove your bones with a slotted spoon, discard, and strain the rest through a colander into a large bowl. If you’re feeling spry, you can strain again through a sieve or cheesecloth to achieve an extra-fancy, clear broth. Chill your luscious potion of collagen and gelatin in the fridge, until the fat congeals and rises to the top. If you want a liquid broth for cooking purposes, you can skim the fat off and store the remaining liquid in the fridge for roundabout a week’s time. However, if you want your broth to drink like a rich toddy of hot buttered rum, I say leave the fat on (we do), and enjoy your broth like molten velvet bone mojo.
氣
