Power Broth: slow food, fast food

As summer draws to a close, I’m getting back into my Monday fasting routine. I find it’s a great way to start the week because:

1. It’s one day I don’t have to think about food.
2. It clears my head and body after any weekend indulgence.
3. It supports healing & repair (especially in the gut) and encourages breakdown of damaged cells.
4. It feels great.

But I’m aware that my body is still using vital nutrients even if I’m not eating them, and I want to make sure that the key ingredients for healing and repair are available Which makes bone broth the perfect fluid to sip when hunger pangs strike. It’s full of amino acids (protein building blocks) and collagen and a range of vitamins and minerals to oil my metabolic wheels. I’m sipping a mug of broth as I write this and, quite honestly, it tastes delicious.

I know it’s currently the hot new thing but this recipe is as old as the hills and has been used for centuries to help people recover from illness and surgery.

Ingredients

You can scale this recipe according to the weight of bones. The quantities below are for 1 kilo, but you can halve or double accordingly.

• 1 litre cold water
• 1 kilo organic grass fed beef bones (T bone, knuckle, marrow, ribs work well)
• 1 sticks celery roughly chopped
• 1 medium onions roughly chopped
• 1 medium carrots (optional – if you prefer a sweeter stock)
• 2 whole cloves of garlic
• bunch of herbs: bay leaves, parsley, sage, thyme, oregano, rosemary
• 1 litre cold water (again)
• 2 tbsp apple cider vinegar or red wine vinegar
• ground black pepper or whole peppercorns
• pinch or two of salt – or seaweed salt if you have it.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200’C
2. Place the bones in cold water in a large stockpot, bring to the boil and keep them at a rolling boil for 20 minutes.
3. Remove the bones and roast them in the oven (without adding any fat) until they look brown and crispy. (This is where the flavour happens.)
4. Retain the water you cooked the bones in and keep it boiling.
5. Tip the bones back into your boiling pot and add the celery, onions, garlic and herbs, carrots if you like.
6. Top up the water level until it just covers the bones (too much water = watery broth!).
7. Simmer as long as you like: at least 2 hours and overnight if you can. (The bigger the bones the longer they can take the heat.)
8. Strain the bones and allow the liquid to cool as quickly as possible. (Though don’t put boiling hot broth in the fridge) This is not a soup to allow to sit on the stove for hours on end, bacteria like nutrient dense foods just as much as you do.
9. In the fridge it will last up to a week – or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Variations

You can use any bones you like – chicken, lamb, veal – but the finer the bones, the less cooking they need. You can even mix the bones but it helps if they’re a similar size to start with. I get mine from Riverford but any reliable organic butcher will do. Or get them online here: https://www.coombefarmorganic.co.uk/categories/76-organic-bone-broth-bones