Butchering without gutting.

[cassie]

Just a comment. It really has no relevance here but I thought many of you might find it interesting. When you bought chickens and other poultry in the early 50's and before, they came defeathered, period. They had their heads, feet, and innards. You drew (gutted) them when you got them home. I think the feet and heads were left so the customer could tell whether they were getting a fryer or a tough old rooster. There is a Saturday Evening Post cover done by Norman Rockwell with a chicken on the butcher's scale and an old woman has her finger pushing up on the scale and the butcher has his thumb pushing down on it. I am sure most of you have seen it. If you look you will find the chicken is as I described.

 

[3KillerBs]

Just a comment. It really has no relevance here but I thought many of you might find it interesting. When you bought chickens and other poultry in the early 50's and before, they came defeathered, period. They had their heads, feet, and innards. You drew (gutted) them when you got them home. I think the feet and heads were left so the customer could tell whether they were getting a fryer or a tough old rooster. There is a Saturday Evening Post cover done by Norman Rockwell with a chicken on the butcher's scale and an old woman has her finger pushing up on the scale and the butcher has his thumb pushing down on it. I am sure most of you have seen it. If you look you will find the chicken is as I described.

I have a 1930's cookbook and the chicken sections starts with advice on the best way to draw the chicken along with a warning that a good cook shouldn't let the butcher do it because he'll make too large an opening.

 

[humblehillsfarm]

Broth from homegrown CX is more flavorful. Since usually they move more...
Broth from Heritage will knock your socks off. ... since it's older and moves a lot

We were hoping the “free range” CX will taste better, but at the same time I’ve been trying not to get my hopes up. They do go outside but, true to the CX, they just lay there.

 

[B-Goock]

I'm missing me some gizzards! Boiled with onions until soft served over rice...Fried with hot sauce poured over them...

No way my wife would even try that. Haha

 

[B-Goock]

We were hoping the “free range” CX will taste better, but at the same time I’ve been trying not to get my hopes up. They do go outside but, true to the CX, they just lay there.

These are most our hatch. Some mix with Wyandotte & Ameraucana and some marans. Spring time we will do some cx.

 

[B-Goock]

Freezer camp 2. My helper is learning and not nearly as squeamish so we did a variety of cuts yesterday morning. A couple that I fileted the breast off, some I split in half, and some I took the entire breast bone & both breasts leaving the backbone & neck for broth.

She was even ok with frying up the hearts & livers for the dogs. I mentioned making some for me..... I'm afraid I may not get a kiss later so dog treats they are.

 

[TheMother]

I regularly will buy two whole chickens (my first round of my own Cornish X are due for slaughter in 5 weeks), and will remove the breasts and legs, and then use the carcass, organs, and wing tips for broth. Two small carcasses usually yields 10-12 cups of broth. I skim off the fat and render it, and usually have about 1/2 and use that to cook all meals except eggs. I use bacon grease for the eggs!

My mother would be proud. In the Ukraine They hardly ever used butter to fry, it was all leftover fats from frying whichever part of the pig for the days meal. Bacon grease keeps those arteries nice and slick, won't catch a clog in em!

 

[humblehillsfarm]

We were hoping the “free range” CX will taste better, but at the same time I’ve been trying not to get my hopes up. They do go outside but, true to the CX, they just lay there.

Very cool that someone brought this thread up again. While I still can't compare a "laying" rooster to a CX, the homegrown CX were far superior to store bought. We processed 20 birds. I let them rest in the fridge for four days, and it took me three days to cut 15 of them down into their respective parts: breasts, tenderloins, whole legs, wings, drumsticks and boneless thighs. I kept all of the carcasses. We fried some of the livers and froze some of the rest. Only thing we decided we couldn't eat were the hearts and gizzards. We gave the gizzards to some old timey neighbors, and used the hearts in the broth and fed them to the dog afterwards. I also kept the feed. 6 feet and three carcasses yielded 10 quarts of delicious stock. ALL of the meat was frozen except for some livers, and two breasts. I made a stir-fry from the breasts and it was the most tender and moist chicken I'd ever had. Unfortunately the frozen meat I've used since then isn't quite as moist, but still holds up better to stir frying than store bought meat. The smallest bird weighed 4 lbs 15 oz, the largest was 7 lbs and 7 ounces, and the median (12 birds) averaged around 6.5 lbs fully dressed. We processed at nine weeks.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Curious as to why no hearts and gizzards??? If you like organ meat, but don't want it TOO strong, you can make chicken pate and use it as a spread on crackers. Basically a little onion, garlic, pinch of thyme, plus equal amounts of heart/liver/gizzard by weight (I wouldn't mind reducing the liver some, I'm not fond of the strong "mineral" flavor) cooked to done, then processed into a paste suitable for spreading, usually with another addition to get the consistency "right". We often use cream cheese, but I've seen it done with mayo, heavy cream, and even this recipe, which uses duck offal and tomato paste!

Duck Pate Recipe example

as with most classic forcemeat recipes, "ya use what ya gots!"

 

[Ridgerunner]

6 feet and three carcasses yielded 10 quarts of delicious stock.

That's within a half cup of what I get out of three carcasses. My canner holds 18 pints so that much gets canned. Some goes in the fridge for immediate use and the rest gets frozen.

The frozen broth is a bit of a problem. It is so convenient to open a jar of broth compared to thawing frozen broth the frozen stuff doesn't get used until it builds up a bit. Then the wife decides to make soup with it since you can just drop it frozen into the pot and thaw it.