I've encountered a number of people, online and IRL, who find the idea of eating chicken feet disgusting -- both on the level of squeamish emotion, because while most chicken parts cut up don't much resemble a living chicken but feet always look like FEET -- and because they believe that chicken feet are too dirty to eat. After all, they walk around in their own poop so how could you POSSIBLY scrub them clean?
Well, you will want to wash them thoroughly under running water first thing, maybe even using a brush if there is caked dirt, but the secret to clean, sanitary chicken feet for your stock pot (or your ethnic specialty recipes), is to knock their socks off.
More accurately, to peel their socks off.
Wait a minute? Chickens have socks?
Yep. And you didn't even know they knew how to knit, right?
OK, seriously, our favorite tiny dinosaurs show their kinship to reptiles most clearly in the beautiful scales of their legs and feet.
And we all know that reptiles shed their scaly skin, sometimes peeling it away cleanly inside out, just like taking a sock off.
So, when you want to make the richest, best-tasting, most firmly gelled, collagen-rich, soup stock ever simmered you need the feet and you need only peel off that outer layer of skin, aka, the cuticle, in order to make those feet perfectly clean. And in order to do that, you need to scald them, which can be done even if you skinned your chicken instead of plucking it and even if you used the feet as a handle to scald the rest of the bird for plucking.
Since the feet are nowhere near the size of an entire bird you can do them easily in a small container of water. Some people dip them briefly in boiling water, but those instructions always come with a warning that if you boil them too long -- more than about 20-30 seconds -- the skin will stick and become impossible to remove. Therefore, I do it at the same roughly 150F that I use for preparing the bird to pluck, starting with 30 seconds to see if I can get it loose and continuing to test until it's ready.
With only one cockerel to do when I took these photos I didn't bother with an ice bath, but if you're doing a good-sized batch of feet you probably want to drop them into the ice bath to prevent over-scalding.
Once you've got it started you just keep on peeling it -- just like taking your socks off.
Notice the little cover from the spur bud? If this had been a mature rooster I would have had to twist the spur cover off as part of the process.
Just keep on going down the toes, where it might get a little trickier and the skin is likely to separate into pieces.
When you get to the toenails pinch, then pull and the toenail cover comes right off.
There you go, perfectly-clean chicken feet, ready for the stock pot along with the rest of the giblets.
If you aren't used to making stock and need a good recipe, you can find my Crock Pot Chicken Stock at the link here: https://www.food.com/recipe/crock-pot-chicken-stock-219819 That doesn't call for the feet specifically, but I consider them part of the giblets and always use whatever chicken pieces I've got on hand without need of formal recipe ingredient lists.
Note: Once you've made this strong, firmly-gelled stock, you *might* find that you have to dilute it to cook rice because it's so full of collagen goodness that the grain sometimes can't absorb it as readily as it needs to.
Well, you will want to wash them thoroughly under running water first thing, maybe even using a brush if there is caked dirt, but the secret to clean, sanitary chicken feet for your stock pot (or your ethnic specialty recipes), is to knock their socks off.
More accurately, to peel their socks off.
Wait a minute? Chickens have socks?
Yep. And you didn't even know they knew how to knit, right?
OK, seriously, our favorite tiny dinosaurs show their kinship to reptiles most clearly in the beautiful scales of their legs and feet.
And we all know that reptiles shed their scaly skin, sometimes peeling it away cleanly inside out, just like taking a sock off.
So, when you want to make the richest, best-tasting, most firmly gelled, collagen-rich, soup stock ever simmered you need the feet and you need only peel off that outer layer of skin, aka, the cuticle, in order to make those feet perfectly clean. And in order to do that, you need to scald them, which can be done even if you skinned your chicken instead of plucking it and even if you used the feet as a handle to scald the rest of the bird for plucking.
Since the feet are nowhere near the size of an entire bird you can do them easily in a small container of water. Some people dip them briefly in boiling water, but those instructions always come with a warning that if you boil them too long -- more than about 20-30 seconds -- the skin will stick and become impossible to remove. Therefore, I do it at the same roughly 150F that I use for preparing the bird to pluck, starting with 30 seconds to see if I can get it loose and continuing to test until it's ready.
With only one cockerel to do when I took these photos I didn't bother with an ice bath, but if you're doing a good-sized batch of feet you probably want to drop them into the ice bath to prevent over-scalding.
Once you've got it started you just keep on peeling it -- just like taking your socks off.
Notice the little cover from the spur bud? If this had been a mature rooster I would have had to twist the spur cover off as part of the process.
Just keep on going down the toes, where it might get a little trickier and the skin is likely to separate into pieces.
When you get to the toenails pinch, then pull and the toenail cover comes right off.
There you go, perfectly-clean chicken feet, ready for the stock pot along with the rest of the giblets.
If you aren't used to making stock and need a good recipe, you can find my Crock Pot Chicken Stock at the link here: https://www.food.com/recipe/crock-pot-chicken-stock-219819 That doesn't call for the feet specifically, but I consider them part of the giblets and always use whatever chicken pieces I've got on hand without need of formal recipe ingredient lists.
Note: Once you've made this strong, firmly-gelled stock, you *might* find that you have to dilute it to cook rice because it's so full of collagen goodness that the grain sometimes can't absorb it as readily as it needs to.
. Let me think . . . with bar be que sauce or some such other. She is so funny. I'd try 'em though.
