Processing Chicken Feet

by Ida Livingston of Davis City, IA

A couple years ago while enjoying a visit with my friend Deanna from Kansas City, she casually mentioned how she had begun making stock (broth) out of chicken feet. She didn’t pick up on my unexclaimed amazement as she went on to tell how she’d started buying 8lb bags of chicken feet from a local supplier and was processing them in her kitchen. She said it made the best chicken broth a person could imagine.

As she talked, I half listened to her narrative and the other half struggled to absorb what she was saying. Chicken feet. Sure, I know it is done, either in other parts of the world, or in commercial production where in the pursuit of monetary profit, nothing is wasted but the squawk. But, Deanna? I didn’t know that I might have preconceived ideas of what a person who cooks chicken feet looked like. Maybe a person who comes in from the yard with dirt under her fingernails and a pencil stuck through her hair for a hairpin, like me. I somehow didn’t picture someone as put-together and beautiful as Deanna canning chicken foot broth. Yet, there she was and there I wasn’t.

I silently contemplated what it would mean for me to do this myself as her glowing 5 star review soaked in. This sort of thing isn’t considered lightly because Can Do and Will Do live in houses next door to each other on my street and it isn’t much travel time from one to the next. I watched my chickens who were slated for the canning jar walk unceremoniously through the mud and worse. My chicken feet wouldn’t be coming to me pre-washed, scalded, and peeled for me in 8lb bags ready to go into the pot. But as I slowly wrapped my brain around the idea, it began to appeal more and more.

We were about to begin butchering our own birds so that evening I told Khoke I was going to try processing the chicken feet this year. He stopped and looked at me like I’d grown another head. It had been muddy and so he asked me if I’d looked at those chicken feet lately. I had. But I was going to give it a try anyway.

Washing

The first round of chicken feet I did were not only mine but those from a couple of my neighbors who were butchering theirs at the same time. They shared my husband’s conviction about the loss of my senses. I nearly joined their sentiment when that 5 gallon bucket full of chicken feet took me hours to scrub clean. This was even before the blanching and peeling.

The next batch of chicken feet that I processed, skipped the hand scrubbing. Instead, I took them to my wringer washer, dumped them in, filled it with water (no soap) and let it wash them. Thank you, Khoke, for the great idea. It was beautiful. Five minutes in that washer got them as clean as 5 hours of washing by hand. Amazing.

Toenails

The first time I processed chicken feet I took florist shears and snipped off the toenails. It was very tedious and the shears blistered my hands by the time I got to the bottom of the bucket. Khoke helped me with round two, and as my self-appointed efficiency expert, he always finds a way to improve the method of whatever job I am working on when he’s helping. And when it comes to the size of projects I tend to bite off, I am always grateful for tips on how to chew them better.

Cutting off the toenails changed dramatically with Khoke at the helm. He got a block of wood and a hatchet, stood the foot in a standing position and chopped the nails off. This works great and is very fast. I also take pains to avoid losing one of my own nails in the process.

The next year, as I spread the good word, a fellow chicken foot cooker said she didn’t remove the toenails at all, they can be pulled off after blanching. So I tried this and it was true. It left a little nail core which is no big deal. But in the end we went back to chopping them off because it seemed to be just a little faster and easier.

Blanching

When I am ready to really get to work, I have a large stock pot heating on the stove filled to about half with water to bring to a boil. Then I take a straight sided colander that will fit easily in the pot, into this I put no more than 2 dozen chicken feet. The colander gets put into the pot and the boiling water must fully cover the chicken feet. I leave them submerged in the boiling water for 30- 60 seconds before pulling them out. My colander has handles and I have ladles with hooks, so I turn the ladles upside down so I can use the hooks to catch the handles and pull them out.

How long I leave them in the water can vary. If the chickens have been freshly butchered it can take as little as 20 seconds in the boiling water. If they are starting to dry out at all, it can take longer. Sometimes it can help to soak them in water if you think they have dried out a little. The pad of the foot can be difficult to peel if it doesn’t blanch well.

Blanching too many chicken feet at a time can make them more difficult to peel the longer they have to sit and wait. Freshly blanched ones are the easiest to peel. When you add a lot of them to the boiling water the extra mass also cools the water off and if they are packed at all, the boiling water does not make uniform contact on the surface of the skin.

Peeling

Once out of the water, I pour a little water over them to stop the cooking process and make them cool enough to hold. They seem to peel better if the water is not actually cold. Then I look for a paring knife to scrape the skin on the legs. I don’t need a particularly sharp knife so I hunt for one that Khoke has not sharpened. He keeps his knives sharp enough that in order to use them, one must be far enough over 18 to be fully responsible for their own injuries.

Anyway, with a sturdy but child safe knife, I scrape the chicken leg and the back of the foot. This loosens the skin and it mostly flakes off. Then I turn the foot over and catch the edge of the thicker skin on the pad of the foot and peel it off. Some are easier to do than others but they generally peel off without too much trouble.

Regardless how hard or easy it is to peel these chicken feet, it is tedious any day of the week and it feels like it takes forever to get a big pile done. But marathons are finished by laying one foot down at a time. Just as quickly as possible.

The Hatchet Returns

My friend Deanna had said that technically the feet should be cut up before cooking but she just cooked hers uncut. This was easier, she said, but it was a little unsettling because the cooking tightened the tendons and caused the toes to curl into what looked like little fists.

I opted to chop mine. The hatchet and block came out again. I’d lay the foot on the block and pop it with the hatchet 3 or 4 times from leg to toe to break the bones so it is easier to cook the marrow out. I didn’t want to actually cut the skin all the way off, this sent chicken toes flying everywhere and that is just not cool.

Cooking

Once the chopping is done and the stock pots are loaded, then I cover the chicken feet with water. Last year I gave it several inches of water over the top of the chicken feet in a pot about half full of them, then I let them cook down over several hours. This gave a thick broth that became gelatinous like jello once cool.

All of Khoke’s former reservations were soon forgotten when he saw the end product. This year he oversaw the cooking setup for the first batch. He just covered the chicken feet with only a couple inches over them. Then we let these cook for 12-18 hours; I bring them up to a boil and then let them simmer for probably far longer than necessary. It cooks a lot of the calcium out of the bones. With the broth less diluted this year, I strained and jarred it hot as I had last year, but when it cooled this year it was so gelatinous that it was just shy of rubber bouncing ball consistency. A little excessive for sure. My next batch got more water.

Canning

Once the chicken feet have cooked as long as I want them to, then I pour the broth and bones into a colander to strain out the broth. This strains better when the broth is hot. Be careful to not give yourself a steam burn like I usually do at one point or another.

With the broth strained it is easy to ladle into jars. I top the jar with a canning lid and ring, and then pressure cook it at 10lb. pressure for 25 minutes. After I unload the pressure cooker, I wait about 24 hours before removing the ring so that I don’t disturb the new seal.

Broth is among a handful of things that I reuse canning flats for. Instead of using new lids for everything, I wash the flats to use again later. Not every flat is reusable, but if the rubber ring around the flat is still soft and dents easily with my thumbnail, then I will reuse it. The flats that are bent or have a hard rubber, these probably won’t reseal and I use them with a rind to cap my honey jars, herbs or other dry goods. I am not suggesting that anyone else should reuse canning flats, I am simply saying that I do.

All canned goods should be stored in a cool, dark, dry place. Temperatures too warm can cause seals to pop, sunlight can degrade the food value, and moisture will rust the lids. Temperatures cold enough to freeze canned food in the jars can break the jars. Broth is particularly susceptible to this because it is primarily water.

Uses

I do not think of myself as a particularly wasteful person. Yet I have times where I find myself enlightened to new ways of wasting less. I was taught as a child that to waste meat in any way was to disrespect the life the animal gave for your provision. I carry this belief on as an adult but feel it with all my food. Those apples took nearly a year to prepare to be harvested and eaten. That head of lettuce gave me its whole life as did the radish I pulled out.

So while I have spent my life careful to not waste the chicken that I eat, I find after all this time a valuable resource that I have been wasting for years. The feet. I’ll save the valley of regret for something else but I will move on into a future with this new resource and gift.

This chicken foot broth is essentially a liquid bouillon. It makes the best chicken and rice dishes and chicken soups of all kinds. Mind you, all this needs to be served warm to hot as this broth, when cold, can be gelatinous. Gelatin tastes much better with cherry flavoring than chicken.

Aside from chicken soups with every flavor, I also open jars of chicken broth to can potatoes. When I harvest potatoes I always have about a wheelbarrow load of little potatoes and cut ones. I always mean to use these first but find them quite tedious.

Recently I have found that if I wash them well (that wringer washer has a lot more than clothes run through it), and pack these little potatoes in jars, whole or chopped, I can pour chicken broth over them and can them this way. This makes quick soup bases for later. I don’t have to pour any water off, I just dump the whole jar into the soup pot. None of them shrivel up this way to be wasted. And when canned shortly after harvest, the skin is more tender and they do not need to be peeled

Khoke’s Favorite Chicken Chili

1 quart chicken broth
1 quart canned pinto beans
1 pint canned ground chicken
1 onion, chopped
4 lg. cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp poultry seasoning
1 tbsp chili powder
½ tsp ground cumin
Salt to taste
1 – 1½ c. dry egg noodles

Combine everything except the pasta. Bring to a boil then simmer until onions are soft. Add pasta and boil until the pasta is cooked. Remove from heat and serve.

Conclusion

The hardest part about doing the chicken feet is summoning the motivation after I have worked so hard to process all the chicken meat. I debone and grind almost all of our chicken, and since chicken is our favorite meat, it isn’t uncommon for me to process up to 100 birds. I debone them and cook the carcasses into broth and can it all before I turn my attention to these feet.

By this time I am tired of smelling cooking chicken in my house but I forge on anyway knowing that I won’t regret it later. Time has taught me to never question if a job is worth the effort in the middle of the job – wait a few months then ask it. Contrary to popular opinion, it really is okay to work hard and be uncomfortable sometimes. The benefits can be measured, but rarely in the moment.

Among the things that have changed in the process of learning how to cook and preserve chicken feet is my outlook. I now know what people who process chicken feet look like. They look like Deanna, they look like me, and they might look like you.