Quick thoughts on meat.....
The traditional designations for chicken are age groups, and they fit perfectly with the progression of the breeding season and the type of cookery that is desired for each season.
Broilers are 8-13 weeks old. You slaughter pluck and spatchcock. Spatchcocking makes dressing the chicken almost as easy as doing a rabbit. It's easy easy easy. Bada Bing. No harder than fileting a fish. Depending on the recipe you're following, you either flatten the whole bird out like a pancake or halve the bird. These broil up easily. It's a quick cooking preparation and rather convenient for that rush meal after work. We use them often. Broilers will range between 3/4 and 1 1/2 lbs depending on the breed. We split one Dorking broiler between the two of us. At first you might think it's a small portion, but remember, we, as a people, eat way too much eat. We have found that heritage poultry is a doorway to proper portion size. We knew heritage poultry was good for the heart, but know we know it's good for the
heart! We do a bunch up on the grill when friends come over. They're great with homemade BBQ sauce.
By definition, fryers are 14-20 weeks old, but I really prefer to do them at 16 weeks. Again, spatchcock. Pretty much, if you're not going to roast a bird whole, it's easier to spatchcock it right then and there. These are what a heritage chicken fry is for! Unfortunately, being an Italian-American from New England, I don't have the apparent genetic knack for making up a proper flour dip; so, we don't do this a lot because I don't like my crust. Still, the tenderness is excellent, and if you can rob the Colonel's recipe, here's your bird. Also, this age group is also great for the grill, but I am careful to keep it at 300F or a tad less. This is a traditional, slow BBQ, and it's mighty good.
Most breeds are at their roaster peak between 20 and 24 weeks. Some texts will say up to a year, but that makes me a little nervous. The older a roaster is, the better one's roasting 6th sense needs to be to get it to the point of tenderness without drying out. Our choice Dorking roaster age is 24 weeks. After 30 weeks, we will not sell it. We don't want to risk a "new to heritage poultry" customer having a bad experience. There's covered roasting and rack roasting, or dry roasting. Covered roasting is by far the easier. All you need is an old cast-iron Dutch oven (with lid!) or one of the old black with white speckling covered roaster that your Nonna had. These pans are made for heritage fowl. Slather the bird with olive oil, butter, or bacon grease. In a small bowl prepared a salt, pepper, and herb rub. Massage it firmly into the skin of the greased bird. Sprinkle the extra into the body cavity. Place the bird in the oven add a cup or two of wine (or broth or even water). Cover the pan with the lid. Roast in a 325F oven for 25 mins per pound--really--take the exact weight in pounds, multiply by 25 minutes, stick it in the oven, set the timer, and walk away. These pans are self-basting so you don't have to do a thing. When the timer goes off, remove it. Let it rest a few minutes, and then carve. If you stuff the bird increase it to 30 minutes per pound. For the two of us, we serve up the legs and save the breast for later sandwiches, salads, etc....
A stewing fowl, or poularde, can be stewed whole for soup and stew, or quartered for coq au vin, fricassee, pollo al cacciatore, etc...
All carcasses are made into stock, which we freeze by the quart. Stock is amazing and a bedrock ingredient for Continental cooking. I'll do a posting about it later, but sufficed to say that it's uses transcend soup.
What all of this comes down to is that meat is muscle, and it does in death what it did in life. Stresses cause the meat to flex or tighten, just like the way your shoulders get all bunched up when you're strung out. Heat, especially dry heat like BBQ, is a stressor. It causes the muscles to flex, or tighten. A broiler is so young that it is essentially a weak bird, even if the high heat is a stressor, the bird is not strong enough to become what we would call "tough." This is why store bought chicken is never tough--dry? perhaps, but never tough. No matter how big it make be, it's always a broiler even if they market it as a roaster. Remember it is age and not size that designates the cookery. This is why, though, I put the warning about the fryer on the grill. It is older and exposed to heat much over 300F on the grill and it's going to flex or get tough. The older the bird is, the wetter the preparation becomes until you're retired layers and cock-birds need a jacuzzi to relax. Think about it; that's what a stewing pot is--a culinary jacuzzi.
FREEZE! Let's think about this word...tough. Tough means strong. What it comes down to is that heirtage fowl are able-bodied. They are strong, healthy and vibrant, with good muscle tone. All of the above cookery designations are proof of human ingenuity and how we've come to live along side heritage fowl over centuries of human experience....all the way up until the 60's and then BAM! In the name of cheap convenience, we have destroyed the variety of our cookery. Why? the older a bird is, the stronger, the healthier, the more flavorful it becomes....no joke. There's a whole lot more flavor in a roaster than a broiler. And a truly older hen or cock should have dark meat so dark that when you're quartering it, it almost looks like beef under chicken skin--pure flavor. But--it must be prepared properly. This is what coq au vin really means--rooster in wine. Why? Because a strong old rooster needs a wine jacuzzi simmer to be tender. It will always be more toothsome than a broiler, but it will be tender, indeed, with onions and mushrooms and red wine.
Something I always stress when I give talks on poultry cookery: there is no such think as tough meat!!!! There is only bad cooking! Any meat can be rendered tender, and we used to do it all the time. That's what heritage cookery is all about. If your chicken is tough, it isn't cooked right--period. But with practice, it's perfect.
White meat is muscle rarely used. Dark meat is muscle often used; it's well lubricated (oily) for fluid flexing. Ducks and Geese are built for long distance flight and constant swimming = all dark meat. Chickens and turkeys only fly up and down from their nighty roost with only the occasional short burst to avoid a predator. However, they walk and scratch and run everywhere = white breast meat and dark leg meat. Industrial chickens and turkeys can't move = all white meat. (Can you say gross! So lameness is good for something
So, birds without muscle-tone are what is healthy for us and our families
Don't worry, the unelected civil servants at the FDA will do anything to make the unable-bodied meat the exclusive poultry availabe to american families
Think about this the next time you bite into an industrial chiken leg or thigh and the meat is almost white. That bird wasn't walking much, if at all
It's amazing that marketing and cheapness can dupe us into eating what is essentially and obviously unhealthy
Go USDA Inspection!
I think I should turn in for now.
