I definitely plan on trying this recipe this weekend, but I won't deny the idea of touching chicken feet still makes me cringe a bit. Not sure how I'm going to pull this off.

BUT... GREAT recipe and thank you for it! You're absolutely right. I can't believe we let chicken feet go to waste!

Wow, talk about a blast from the past.

Every time I tell anyone about using feet they look at me like I'm crazy. I remember my grandmother and great aunts making soup from chicken feet too. It was the richest, most flavorful stock you can imagine.

For any readers that are skeptical, don't be. It's the most luxurious broth you'll ever have.

Thanks Elise. This brings back many happy childhood memories and a hankering for that great broth too!

That reminds me. I need to clip my dog's toenails.

Am I weird for finding those feet really cute?

That is the creepiest picture I've ever seen! ;-)

Oh no, this one is much creepier. ;-) ~Elise

I use wings and get a similar result.

I just recently made stock with chicken feet and it was delicious. There's an hispanic supermarket chain called Pro's Ranch Market in Phoenix, Texas, and California that sells chicken feet.

Nope, sorry Elise, this one won't make it into my cookbook. I saw fried chicken feet on a Chinese buffet once and that was the last time I ever went there. My father used to swear by pickled pigs feet until he brought some home in a gallon jar - we threw it out after it grew mold (about 2 years later).

Nope, my rule sticks - nothing that could ever lick me, kiss me, or kick me, or organ meats. Something has to go into dog food! Load up on the unique fruits, veggies, and spices, but keep my meats clean and pure.

That's funny, I have a jar of pickled pigs trotters in the pantry just for my mother. I won't touch them, don't like the taste, but she loves them. ~Elise

My Mom put the chicken feet in her soup too. She never made a soup broth exclusively from chicken though. My mother always used stewing hens for making chicken soup, the older ones that were no longer good layers. They would always have egg yolks inside them too, of various sizes, that would have gone in an egg if the chicken lived long enough. When the soup was almost done, my mother added those yolks in the soup too, we fought over them!!!

One further word about chicken feet. If you do purchase them, either purchase them already "peeled" as in the picture OR you will have to attend to that process to yourself. Since my mother butchered her own chickens, she also peeled the feet, how though escapes me.

Good point on the peeling of the feet. I looked into it and apparently it's pretty easy to do and part of the reason to boil them first for 5 minutes. After the first boil, and then rinsing, you can easily slip of the outer (yellow) layer of skin. ~Elise

COULDN'T WE HAVE DONE WITHOUT THE FEET!

You are right! It looks like a little disformed baby hand on that picture where you hold it :o
But I want to try anyways! I guess it is easier than cooking live lobster...

I actually remember my Mom using them when I was younger. I know that I'm far too detached from my food to actually do it myself - but I remember soups made with them being so, so good.

My grandmother also used to make her stock from chicken feet, sometimes mixed with the necks. It really was good stuff! I remember how we used to gnaw on those feet afterwards. Most kids would find that gross nowadays, but we thought it was a treat!

Sweet! I never use all chicken feet in my stock, but I always try to use a few. I just made two gallons of wild duck broth and used about 40 duck feet in that batch. One tip: Use a cleaver to roughly hack up the feet, which releases even more gelatin.

HAHA! That picture just brightened my day!

I know we can buy chicken feet at at least one of our local butchers' shops. But I haven't examined them all that closely to see whether they are peeled or not. We've often bought necks and backs (they sell huge bags of them for $1.00) that we oven roast before making into stock. It turns out pretty gelatinous but perhaps not quite as much as in your chicken feet stock. (And it is a great base for soup!)

Does anyone ever roast rather than boil peeled feet before making them into stock?

-Elizabeth

Elise, these pictures are very disturbing!
My mom kept the feet in the chicken soup, for she loved to suck on them--only her, nobody else. ;-)

Just found this page looking for a different recipe and couldn't resist reading this article... my first thought was similar to the many who connected the chicken feet with Chinese cuisine. My mother is from Taiwan and LOVES to get chicken feet when we go to eat dim sum. As a matter of fact, when my husband and I were dating, we took him with to dim sum... you can only imagine the look on his face (he was raised in northern Wisconsin) when he was offered the chicken feet! But he tried them and forever went down in my mom's book as approved by her! I love trying new recipes and if this stock is as wonderful as you say, I can't wait to try it!!

Wow, thanks for posting this!
I have to admit, I'm a little grossed out by the little claws and all, but I'm all for using the whole animal.
Looking forward to trying this, once I locate some chicken feet in my area.

Growing up, my dad would always request my mom to cook chicken feet and the preparation is similar to your recipe with the addition of fresh ginger slices. I think this was to remove the "fishy" taste from the chicken feet.
Most local Chinese restaurants here in the Philippines would serve chicken feet in a sweet chilli sauce, steamed with black beans or a sweet barbeque. This is also served as a popular street food that is grilled. We call them "Addidas".

I am Asian and you could always find chicken feet soup on my grandmother's table. The broth is great. The gelatinous texture of the cooled broth reminds me of broth made with oxtail, very concentrated and rich. I haven't had chicken feet soup in years and am tempted to try this recipe. Thanks.

I couldn't imagine the kind of stomach it takes to chop off the little toenails/tips of the feet. Pretty hypocritical of me, yes, but I just couldn't do it myself. This would really make me realize I am eating another animal, similar to myself...chicken feet have probably turned some people vegan.

I have bone loss and I took a class with
Jeanette Turner, at the Wedge coop in
Minneapolis, MN. One of the great sources
of calcium is to simmer a couple pounds
of chicken feet for 24 hours. The stock
is a great calcium source and I freeze it
and add to much of my cooking.

Adele Davis suggests adding a little vinegar to the stock when cooking, if you want more calcium extracted from the bones. You might need to add a little salt to offset any taste of the vinegar. This way you wouldn't have to cook the bones 24 hours, but the standard 4-6. ~Elise

I really love this entry, but especially the pictures. I imagine you having a lot of fun taking them.

I hope they're tasty because they look disgusting... They looked creepy raw but then I scrolled down and saw them cooked... yuck! Raw, they looked like "witches hands" but cooked, they actually looked more "human-like"... I'll leave them for others to enjoy...

I remember when Garrett mentioned your buying chicken feet on his blog, so I've been waiting for a recipe. I can find chicken feet in New York City at Bravo Supermarkets, which are all over town in largely Hispanic neighborhoods.

How do you use the gel/stock afterwards? Do add it to thinned chicken stock? Reheat it? Add water?

Fascinating! I'm going to have to try this for sure!

Just reheat it. If you have reduced it substantially to begin with, you may need to add some water to it. Just go by taste. ~Elise

I cannot but laugh. My husband and I visited super store yesterday , and there they where - chicken feet. They where a little bit of an attraction in the store, and people were stopping for a short period of time and then leaving with a shocked face, most of them shaking their head. LOL Yes it was a blast from the past for us to. There was no chicken soup without chicken legs when we were growing up. My baba made sure that I get the leg in my plate, as I loved to nibble on the little bones :))
Wow that was long time ago :)))

The coolest food-related picture I have seen in quite some time - although a bit creepy ;)

Eww! That was my first thought, my second...you are awesome. I don't know anyone that would try this. I don't know that I could do it, but now thanks to you I know how. Thank you!! I am going to link to this so all of my readers can learn as well. :)

I was told to cut the toes off because there is a gland underneath them that is really bad for you...

Well that's an interesting theory. Never heard that one before. ~Elise

Wow! How scary and freaky and totally awesome is this picture!?! Love it.

They had these at Price Rite - I wasn't sure what to do with them. Now I really want to try them - hope Price Rite still has them!

When I asked my butcher if I could order chicken feet, the lady next to me assumed I was Jewish and started chatting with me in Yiddish! (I'm not and had no idea what she was saying, much to her disappointment.) Maybe feet are the secret to the famous "Jewish penicillin"! :)

Thanks so much for your quick response Elise! I will definately follow your advice. I saw your recipe for stock and thought it would be a terrible waste to throw the feet away. So, thank you for inspiring me to use as much of the chicken as possible!
Best wishes,
Brian

I just love the fact that you included making chicken stock with the feet. That's what I do. But I must say...you are a good soul - - - I don't cut off the claws. My recipe is here:

http://marysnest.typepad.com/marys_nest/2008/07/homemade-chicke.html

All the best,

Mary

Thanks for this recipe. I shop at a butcher's shop, where they sell chicken feet. I would always stop and look at them and wonder what could I do with them. As I perused the internet this morning, I found this! I want to make chicken soup for a co worker that's not feeling well. I am sure this will impress her. I will keep the chicken feet as my secret ingredient, lol! They say, chicken soup has natural healing powers. They just don't know the secret is in the feet!

I am making this recipe tonight. I wanted a whole chicken from the market, but they only had feet and they gave me them for free - so why not. I don't have any celery, but I am sure it will work out with carrots and onions. I'll throw some garlic in there and some other veggies.

Can't beat free! ~Elise

A little information on how I use my chicken feet stock...

I strained out all of the chunky bits and put the broth in the fridge overnight. The next morning I took a large spoon and skimmed of what little fat had congealed on the top.

Next, I melted the stock by warming it slightly. Once it was pourable, I put it in a pitcher and carefully poured it into plastic ice cube trays that had been lightly sprayed with non-stick canola oil spray. I don't know if the spray was necessary, but the "chicken jigglers" came out pretty easily.

Next, I placed each chicken broth cube on a non-stick cooling rack (not touching each other) placed over a shallow drip pan and placed them all in the freezer. As they froze, the moisture rose to the surface and a thick layer of frost formed on each cube.

Once they were all frozen, I squeezed each one to break off the frost, and placed them together in a large zip-lock freezer bag.

Now, whenever I need chicken broth I make it by placing a cube in a cup or two of warm water. I recently made fresh green chili and used chicken feet stock made from one cube per cup of water and the resulting sauce was a little thick and gelatinous for my taste. I think one chicken cube to a 1.5 to 2 cups of water would be ideal.

Hello Elise. I'm another Elyse, spelled a little differently from your name. I'm 79 years old, and a year ago was diagnosed with osteoporosis. I refused to take any of those prescription drugs that are supposed to be so helpful, but often can have such terrible side effects. (My doctor is very open-minded and never argues with me about the benefits of taking medications, but he really knows nothing about holistic methods.) So, I did some research. Finding a paragraph in an Alternative Healing book I have on my bookshelf about the osteoporosis healing benefits of soup stock made with vinegar in it, I searched the web. Your site came right up! and I copied your recipe, although I found no reference to how much vinegar to put in it. So I experimented on my own. I cooked a huge pot of five pounds of feet at once, 2 quarts of water to a pound, and started my experiment with 2 Tbsp. of vinegar to 4 qts. of water, and cooked for about 16 hours. This turned out pretty good, but I wanted the bones to soften more (thus removing more calcium for my healing) and eventually settled on 1 Tbsp of vinegar for every qt. of water, cooking for 18 hours. This week, I cooked the stock for 20 hours, and I think I'm now satisfied with my experimentation. The bone ends are actually crumbling away. And best of all! I've had my second bone scan! The report that came from the nurse in the doctor's office said, "Your bone density has improved, and doctor says to just keep on doing what you are doing!" My 85 year old husband has osteoporosis, too, and I truly expect this wonderful food medicine to heal him, too. Thank you for this great web-site. I'm sure it is helping a great many folks who need to know about natural healing.

Finally I found some reference to cooking chicken feet!
Very common practice in my country of origin, very healthy - all the easy to digest proteins, calcium, chicken stock in general being very healing...

I will admit not to only like the stock but crunching the bones with my teeth and getting all the cartilage out - been doing so since I was a child.

The only thing I can not find on the web yet - is calorie amount in chicken feet and broth :)

Thanks for the recipe. I have a farm where I normally get backs & necks for stock. Well they sell feet too. So this time I ordered backs, necks & feet. But a mistake was made & I only got the feet. So I used the recipe & it worked great. Although the end product was kind of brown gold & not really gold. I think I let it cook down a bit too much in the first 4 hours.

I've heard that chicken feet make the best broth so I had my local butcher order me some. He could only get them in if he ordered a big box and I had to buy all of it. So I came home today with it and it was soooo disgusting! I had to package them all in freezer bags and felt so off about the whole thing, wondering what I got my self into. I found your recipe right before I started and kept telling myself as I bagged them up that this used to be normal for our ancestors to do and I sure felt like I was one of them!!! My 3 year old took one look at them, said "YUCK!" and then got right into helping me, which he enjoyed doing! I ended up with 14 1/2 medium sized freezer bags jammed full of feet!!! I figure there is a little over 2 lbs in each bag and I only paid $24, which is going to make such cheap broth! Aside from the gross factor of dealing with chicken feet, I am super excited to try out the broth! Thanks for the recipe. :)

Hi,

I have given the chicken feet as a joke gift to friends turning 70. I paint the toenails bright red, make cuffs with lace, and add a ring. Looks like our real hands as we age. Now I will try the broth with the extra feet.

Your friends must LOVE you. Hah! ~Elise

What is the conversion ratio from gel to cups of stock/broth?

Depends on how much you've cooked the stock down. Sometimes 1:1 gel to water to give you stock, sometimes less, sometimes more. Taste it and add water (or not) to preference. ~Elise

I was born in Romania and I remember my grandma making stock out of chicken feet. I was very little, and at the time a chicken foot was something I could actually hold in my hand and gnaw on. I was around 2-3 years old. I was too young to be grossed out or anything I just remember liking the flavor.

A few years later we came the US, and we never had chicken feet again. Until I saw them at the local ethnic latino market, I asked my mom to buy some and make some broth.

She did it similarly to you with the boil and the cleaning in the first 5 minutes.

What she did differently though was she put them in the crock pot to boil slowly. The broth flavor was fabulous.

I think cooks in Western culture let alot of good ingredients go to waste just because of custom.