How do you get the 'wild taste' out of free range chickens?

[Nashonii]

Another title would be: " How do YOU cook your roosters? Need recepies.
We skinned the first of our 'bad boys'. We let him set for 2 days in the refreg, (to let the muscles relax), then in the freezer. We are new to this, and have only cooked this one so far. We put him in a slow cooker for 12 hours, with potatoes, celery, and tomatoes. The meat was falling off the bone and very tender, BUT the taste was far too loud!
I've been told it could be because he was a free-range rooster, maybe. He was a Rock,Marans mix.
We have 2 more ready to cook, but need some advice on how to get the 'wild taste' out of them. I've heard of putting them in brine water, but we are trying to cut out salt from our diet. Any Ideas? Please help, I have 5 more roos coming up. !!!!!

BTW- We have Never eaten home grown chicken, so don't know itf they are supposed to be that strong tasting. If so, I don't think they are at all good.

 

[sourland]

Well, for me, this flavor is why I raise my own chickens. It is a far different taste from the bland commercially produced birds.

 

[bobbi-j]

I agree that it's the difference between home grown and store bought chicken. Free ranged chicken has so much more flavor and texture than the store bought. I don't know what you can do to mask the flavor. Use it in something spicy, maybe? I don't know. I prefer the flavor of my free ranged chickens. I do think that it may be an acquired taste for some. If you're not used to it, it could take some getting used to.

 

[blucoondawg]

Just think, this is how all chicken tasted before the invent of fast growing broilers. I actually like the taste, tastes like chicken. If you don't like it I would butcher younger, to butcher younger and have a good amount of meat you'd be best off raising broilers these would give you meat like the store bought variety which you are used to

 

[TheChickInn]

We don't eat our chickens- because they are all pets- LOL......but I do hunt. When I put a venison roast in the crock pot, I always like to add some beef bullion to help mask the gaminess. I imagine you could try some chicken bullion when cooking chicken with the same results?

 

[Beekissed]

Another title would be: " How do YOU cook your roosters? Need recepies.
We skinned the first of our 'bad boys'. We let him set for 2 days in the refreg, (to let the muscles relax), then in the freezer. We are new to this, and have only cooked this one so far. We put him in a slow cooker for 12 hours, with potatoes, celery, and tomatoes. The meat was falling off the bone and very tender, BUT the taste was far too loud!
I've been told it could be because he was a free-range rooster, maybe. He was a Rock,Marans mix.
We have 2 more ready to cook, but need some advice on how to get the 'wild taste' out of them. I've heard of putting them in brine water, but we are trying to cut out salt from our diet. Any Ideas? Please help, I have 5 more roos coming up. !!!!!

BTW- We have Never eaten home grown chicken, so don't know itf they are supposed to be that strong tasting. If so, I don't think they are at all good.

Been eating "real" chickens since the 70s and can tell you that it's not the free ranging, but it is what you are feeding otherwise~chicken feeds. The only thing I have ever discovered that will take the gamy flavor from real, honest to goodness farm yard chickens is to feed fermented feeds. I never minded the gamy flavor all those years because that's how chicken is supposed to taste but was surprised to find that feeding the fermented feed toned down that flavor just enough to yield a mild, flavorful clean taste on even the oldest rooster. My mother is almost 80 and she too was surprised about the difference. It even removes the smell of their cooking to one that will make your mouth water...I've never tasted chicken this good in my life!

We don't buy or eat store bought chicken, so you can say we are connoisseurs of home grown chickens...it's what we've been eating since the late 70s.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Not really, other than free ranging for most of their diet instead of the diet being primarily corn based feeds. The famous Bresse chickens in France are free ranged and then finished off on grain and buttermilk, so there is an aspect to their famous flavor being produced by feeding a fermented food as well.

Instead of the Jersey Giant breed that has a poor feed conversion, you might consider the Plymouth White Rock that has a density and clarity of meat, with great fat content, on the same amount of feeds one would feed a much smaller bird. I've chosen the PWRs time and again down through the years for their beautiful, flavorful meat, their excellence of lay and their extreme feed thrift...and huge carcasses of the spent layers that can be utilized for soup and stock. I'm very conscious of feed conversion and have found the WRs to be my best feed conversion of all the breeds I've known.

This bird in the pic had been eating primarily foraged feeds and sharing 1-1/2 c.(total feed given for the whole flock) of feed each evening with 13 other birds...so not much actual feed per bird. But what she was fattened on was the excellent White Dutch Clover and tall fescue in our meadow, as well as the wonderful bug l life we cultivate here. This is a 6 yr old WR hen. That very golden, fine fat seems to be a direct result of feeding the fermented feeds...I'd never seen such yellow fat until feeding this.




Below is the same hen, cut completely in half....next to a whole mature, large RIR/WLH rooster. Her breasts were larger, her thigh almost as large and her length of back was comparable.





The white dutch clover is 22% protein and highly digestible and I find my flocks returning to it time and again, morning and evening when the sugar is highest in the plant.



I also use the WDC and foraged feeds for my CX(seen below) meat birds and they too prefer to graze the clover, as well as range far and wide to forage the insect life in the woods surrounding this meadow...

...

I can't even begin to describe the benefit to the weight gain, health, flavor and fat on a bird fed on the right pasture....you don't have to plow/cultivate your yard/meadow to get some better grasses growing there...you can simply frost seed some good forage during Feb/Mar and let them establish before the native grasses take hold for the year. The eggs and meat will both taste better, you are saving yourself a ton in feed costs and the health for the bird can't even be calculated...I've got layers still laying at 6 yrs of age, still healthy, still active. Here's a link to a wonderful site that can describe the nutrition to be found in different types of feed, pasture grasses and legumes: http://www.feedipedia.org/node/245

That yellow fat is extremely nutritious, BTW. For example, it is hard, with factory farmed animals, to find an animal fat with the right kinds of vitamin K -- nicely yellowed fat is an indication of the presence of that particular vitamin.

One of the many benefits of clover is it stays palatable for the birds for much longer than other forage options. I know here the clumps of clover are still sprouting new tender leaves after the pasture grasses have gone dormant for the summer (dry summers). And because of the leaf shape, it is less likely to cause impactions in the birds' crops.

 

[idhound]

I don't mind the wild taste of free range anything but just thought I would share the quail feast we had this weekend bbq quail on grill just grill
and add so bbq sauce to them they are tasty this way

 

[StruckBy]

The flavor of the meat of free-range birds is to store-bought chicken what the flavor of free-range eggs is to battery eggs. It's possible that your rooster got into something to make his meat stronger tasting-I could always tell the birds that had figured out where we put the fish guts for example- but odds are you're just finally tasting what real chicken tastes like. If you don't like it, I would suggest using heavily spiced recipes designed for game birds or curries. Thai green curry springs to mind because it's one we use with wild quail, grouse, pheasant, etc.

Edited to add:
I also think 12 hrs is WAY too long to stew a bird, especially in a slow-cooker which always seem to add a weird flavor. But then, I can pick up the taste of something that was made is a slow-cooker blindfolded before I start to chew. You might want to try just making chicken soup out of one the same way you would with a store-bought whole chicken to see if it was really the flavor or if it was the cooking method.

 

[Elke Beck]

How old was the rooster? Because as they get older, they get stronger. You might want to try younger birds to see if you like them better.