Greetings all, I wanted to pass on my experience. a couple of weeks ago we harvested our first cornish cross. I read up on all sorts of things, got a chicken plucker and kill cone from a local lending library, got a propane burner set up for the scalder and prepared my children for their first experience with harvesting their own food. with all that was involved I failed to read up on resting times. we threw two of the chickens in the oven right after harvest, thinking they'd be the freshest birds we could possibly get. much to my despair, the meat was so tough I couldn't barely cut through it. then I read the next day about what I did wrong, I didn't let it rest, and holy crap, I froze the rest of them immediately... I worried that all my work had been ruined and lives wasted. fortunately I decided to try and let the birds rest after being thawed the next time we were preparing for a chicken dinner. we've had two more now and they were great. I let them thaw out on the counter for a few hours and then in the fridge for 2 days. it appears that you can "rest" a bird when it thaws. this will be helpful for those times when I don't have time to let them rest before throwing them in the freezer. that said, I'm not sure if they were as tender as they would be if they were allowed to rest first, burt they were enjoyable, none the less. does anyone know if they become as tender if done this way?
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