Chicken happens to be one of the most widely consumed meats and food items all over the globe. It is consumed in large amounts by people in any country and is now widely replacing other forms of meat because of its nutritional values. In fact, it is quickly becoming a staple food in the diets of many individuals, with the number seeming to be on the rise constantly.
One of the most favored pieces of a chicken is its legs. One of the best methods of eating chicken legs is by boiling them. Learning how to boil chicken legs is thus essential. But you can also read – How to Boil Whole Chicken. The chicken leg has a juicy mass that is a treat to chew on, and the soft bones that can be chewed on easily. They are a treat to eat no matter how you do it. Here’s how you can boil chicken legs.
Contents
How to Boil Chicken Legs (Step-by-Step Instructions)
Like any other food item, there’s a specific procedure that goes into boiling a chicken leg. You need a specific set of ingredients and follow a process to combine them and boil the chicken legs the way you want to. Here is the process you need to follow to boil chicken legs:
Step 1: Take some chicken legs
Gather 1 kilogram of chicken legs and even lay them out in a pressure cooker or any other utensil. You need to make sure that they have a significant amount of space between them and do not intrude each other’s space. Make sure you clean the chicken legs before you put them inside the utensil for boiling. Having unclean chicken legs means that the boiling process could be impeded during its course.
Step 2: Add water
To boil the chicken legs, you obviously need to add in water. Add around 2.5 liters of water to be able to boil your current quota of chicken legs. Of course, if you use a smaller amount of chicken legs, you would need less water to boil all of it properly. To regulate the amount of water you add based on the amount of chicken you use.
Step 3: Add a carrot
Of course, you need to add something to bring flavor to the chicken. Moreover, what better to use than a natural ingredient for flavoring? Just add a single carrot, preferably cut into half, to provide some good natural flavor to your boiling mixture. The carrot adds some sweetness to the chicken and gives it a springy taste. It’s one of the best vegetables to use when wanting to add flavor to the chicken.
Step 4: Put an onion
For some more flavoring, an onion would do the trick. Just add onion to your boiling mixture. You do not need to cut the onion into smaller parts. Simply take off the peel of the onion and put it inside the pressure cooker or utensil whole. Adding more than one onion could end up making your chicken bitterer than you might want. So just add a single onion to counter the sweetness brought by the carrot and add another flavor to the chicken.
Step 5: Add Bay Leaf
You can’t go wrong with adding some more flavor to the mixture. Of course, once again we are going for a natural product instead of using an artificial flavor. This time, bay leaf needs to be added to the mixture to give it the effect of something like an herbal spice. Bay leaf is the best possible product to use for that purpose and works like a charm with chicken. Add 2 pieces of bay leaf to the mixture for that purpose.
Step 6: Add black peppercorns
Black peppercorns are another great idea when you want to bring some flavor to the chicken. The kind of bitter taste they bring is magnificent, and by using just a small amount, you can easily spread the flavor around throughout the chicken. Adding half a tablespoon of black peppercorns will do the trick in this case. Moreover, by doing the trick, it will bring some great flavor.
Step 7: Boil the mixture
This step involves preliminary boiling where everything that you have put in one place needs to be molded together. Just put the utensil on the stove and leave it to boil. There’s no specific time limit in this case. Take the utensil off of the stove when you feel that the mixture has thoroughly boiled.
Step 8: Add salt and boil
Once you have taken off the stove, strain off the excess and add one tablespoon of salt to the mixture. Adding the salt not only provides extra flavor, but it also allows you to make sure that the boiling procedure is carried out strenuously. Just add the salt and boil once again.
How Long to Boil Chicken Legs
To make the best possible boiled chicken legs with the above ingredients and procedures, a boiling time of 20 minutes is more than decent to get the very best taste. In 20 minutes, the mixture gets time to spread out evenly, and all of the ingredients get their fair share of water movement and salt access. Since the water is already hot because it was boiled previously, it becomes easier to boil it now.
How to Boil Chicken Legs (Short Summary)
Ingredients
- Chicken Legs - 1 kilogram
- Water - 2.5 liters
- Carrot - 1
- Onion - 1
- Bay Leaf - 2 pieces
- Black Peppercorns - ½ tablespoon
- Salt - 1 tablespoon
Instructions
- Take some chicken legs
- Add water
- Add a carrot
- Add an onion
- Add Bay Leaf
- Add black peppercorns
- Boil the mixture
- Add salt and boil
Notes
- Using skinless chicken for better boiling
- Adding more vegetables for more flavor
- Boiling for longer periods of time to bring more flavor to it
Denise
Delicious!
FluffyTea
What to do with the water/soup?
Vera Stetsenko
You can prepare old fashioned chicken soup
Emma
“Once you take off the stove, strain off the excess” then add salt and boil again??? WHAT is “the excess” ?? Your instructions seem very confusing for a relatively simple thing to do. Please explain what straining off the excess is.