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Paul Magnussen -> Nails, gelatin and stock/broth (Jun. 17 2013 20:44:22)
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A couple of years ago my wife convinced me of the value, from the stand-point of both nutrition and taste, of cooking with with what the British call stock (and Americans apparently call broth) in most cases where the recipe calls for water.
By this I mean what you get by simmering bones and other miscellaneous body-parts in water for around 24 hours, and straining the result.
The reason I mention this is that my nails use to be quite brittle and broke frequently; but now they haven’t done so for quite a long time. This is an unexpected fringe-benefit, as previously I hadn’t considered that aspect at all.
You can buy bits of the animal that no one wants to eat (such as chicken backs, necks, heads and feet) relatively cheaply at a decent butcher’s.
What we typically do is roast a chicken, and then simmer the carcase, along with 6 or so feet, for 24 hours in a crock-pot. If we haven’t got a carcase to hand, we use a couple of pounds of other body parts.
We then strain the result and put it into jars. We now use so much that we just put these in the fridge. (If you’re going to keep them more than two or three days, they need to go in the freezer, and in that case, you need to allow enough room in the jar for the ice to expand, and also to leave the lids a little loose so the jars aren’t airtight.)
The same kind of operation applies to beef.
I’m now finding that a cup of hot stock with a bit of salt makes an excellent snack between meals, too!
The feet are what provide the gelatin, and the stock/broth you buy in stores typically doesn’t have nearly as much — as well as frequently having icky preservatives.
Straining the stock is a somewhat messy task, but it takes about 20 minutes. If you spend more than that per week fixing broken nails, you might consider giving this a shot. It’s more beneficial than gelatin tablets, and certainly tastes better.
P.S. you’ll need to skim the fat off the top after it’s been in the fridge a while.
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