The best way to cook an older chicken! (not stew)

[K0k0shka]

We just ate our oldest chicken yet - a rooster over a year old, that I culled for a friend. He was HUGE and built like a tank. My husband is a big sous vide fan and we've done that with chickens before with amazing results, but never one this old. So he decided to leave the chicken in the sous vide a lot longer - usually it's a couple of hours, but he left this guy in there (cut in half and each half bagged separately) for 36 hours! Then put him in the oven at 450 for 15 minutes to crisp up. Maaaan, that was the most tender, most flavorful chicken I've had in a very long time!!! The tenderness of store-bought, but the meat was a rich brown color and with such deep, amazing flavor! 1+ year's worth of flavor. Better flavor than the younger backyard chickens we usually eat. Now I'm a big fan of older chickens, if they can be tenderized so effectively without having to resort to stew! We cooked this rooster together with a 3-month-old backyard cockerel in the sous vide and while both were extremely tender, the older rooster was a lot more flavorful and delicious. Now I'm thinking I need to let my food chickens get older before processing.

I recommend this method wholeheartedly. The sous vide set up is worth every cent. We use it for all kinds of meat (best steaks ever!!!!) and other things, like eggs that you want to use for hollandaise or mayo without worrying about using raw.

 

[Dinoroar]

Thanks for sharing! I tried to get set up to do sous vide but maybe my cooker was defective or I wasn’t using it right. For sone reason the water didn’t hold temp. You’ve given me motivation to try it again and figure out what I did wrong! I’d love a non stew go to method for older birds!

 

[Molpet]

I'm a worry wart about the plastic in the bags
I have pressure cooker until tender and then crisp up in the oven.

 

[Shadrach]

I think the trick is to leave the bird in the fridge for three days after processing.
I've found age doesn't really matter if the rooster has been hung, then processed, then left for three days.

 

[K0k0shka]

Thanks for sharing! I tried to get set up to do sous vide but maybe my cooker was defective or I wasn’t using it right. For sone reason the water didn’t hold temp. You’ve given me motivation to try it again and figure out what I did wrong! I’d love a non stew go to method for older birds!

It's a tricky thing and a novel concept if you haven't done it before. But so worth troubleshooting!

 

[K0k0shka]

I'm a worry wart about the plastic in the bags
I have pressure cooker until tender and then crisp up in the oven.

It uses special sous vide bags that don't leach stuff into the water. You shouldn't use just any bags.

 

[K0k0shka]

I think the trick is to leave the bird in the fridge for three days after processing.
I've found age doesn't really matter if the rooster has been hung, then processed, then left for three days.

I put this one straight into the freezer after processing. He didn't spend any time in the fridge before that. Not sure if that matters.

 

[Shadrach]

I put this one straight into the freezer after processing. He didn't spend any time in the fridge before that. Not sure if that matters.

It does matter.
When you kill a chicken something called rigor mortis sets in. You can look up the science of how this works. If you freeze the dead bird then the rigor mortice doesn't ease.
If you put the bird in the fridge when it's stiff after a day or so the stiffness eases. Three days and it all relaxes and you end up with a supple bird. That's what you want when trying to cook it.

 

[K0k0shka]

It does matter.
When you kill a chicken something called rigor mortis sets in. You can look up the science of how this works. If you freeze the dead bird then the rigor mortice doesn't ease.
If you put the bird in the fridge when it's stiff after a day or so the stiffness eases. Three days and it all relaxes and you end up with a supple bird. That's what you want when trying to cook it.

I know what rigor mortis is, I meant that I don't know if it matters for this chicken in particular because it was sous vided for so long. In general, I find that the resting doesn't make a difference on young chickens (under a year old). I did an experiment once where I butchered two at the same age, rested one for 3 days and made soup out of him, the other I cooked right after butchering, made the same soup out of him. I could not taste a difference in the toughness of the meat at all. I haven't tried this experiment on 1+ year old birds, so maybe it matters more for them, if you cook them the standard way. But as we have seen with this 1+ year old, not-rested rooster, resting makes no difference if you use sous vide.

 

[Molpet]

I know what rigor mortis is, I meant that I don't know if it matters for this chicken in particular because it was sous vided for so long. In general, I find that the resting doesn't make a difference on young chickens (under a year old). I did an experiment once where I butchered two at the same age, rested one for 3 days and made soup out of him, the other I cooked right after butchering, made the same soup out of him. I could not taste a difference in the toughness of the meat at all. I haven't tried this experiment on 1+ year old birds, so maybe it matters more for them, if you cook them the standard way. But as we have seen with this 1+ year old, not-rested rooster, resting makes no difference if you use sous vide.

If you're quick, you can clean and get them cooking before rigor mortis sets in.