Today’s unpleasant surprise was when I realized I’d taken home a bad loaf of bread. Not that it was stale, but it tasted like someone put too much salt in the baguette. A few bites later, I was unreasonably thirsty. (And I bought it from Safeway, where the baking is normally fine.) Swapping the bread for crackers, I made chicken broth with frozen broccoli stems. Cook’s Illustrated has a new primer on chicken broth that recommends five hours for the best results, using only chicken, onions, and bay leaves, and no other herbs or aromatic vegetables. The goal is to make it “as chicken-y as possible,” but I don’t understand why you would want that. I don’t see any reason that chicken should be considered the ideal flavor base, and I’m often tempted to use vegetable broth instead. I didn’t have five hours and I also couldn’t follow their advice to just use chicken backs and wings, since I wanted to cook a whole chicken, so I boiled it with the broccoli for an hour or so and hoped for the best. I’ve wanted to make my own broth lately after I started having second thoughts about the Kitchen Basics brand I usually get at Whole Foods. It tastes good, but I don’t want it to be the foundation of a meal when I don’t really know what’s in it.

(Photo: Dickson Wine Bar on U Street.) 

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