If the meat is tough it just means you didn’t cook it right for the age. The older they are the slower and moister they need to be cooked. Coq au Vin is the standard French way to make a gourmet meal out of an old rooster but there are other ways. My current popular way is to cut the old rooster into serving pieces, rinse them but do not shake the water off, coat them in basil and oregano, then bake in a tightly sealed baking dish at 250 degrees for about 4 hours. Aging and brining can make a difference in texture and flavor too. Flavor them as you will.
Flavor is something else. Age and sex both have a lot to do with that. The chicken you get at the store is pretty bland to me, it just doesn’t have much flavor. It’s the same thing with veal versus older beef. Flavor develops as they get older. After puberty, males have a stronger flavor than females. It gets stronger as they get older. Personal taste certainly comes into play here. If you are used to the bland chicken from the store you may not like the flavor of these chickens. Nothing wrong with that, flavor preference is very individual.
Old roosters make the best broth. I take the back, neck, wings, gizzard, heart, and feet, put them in a crock pot and add a bay leaf, peppercorns, basil, oregano, maybe chives, parsley or thyme, a carrot and some celery, cover that with water and cook on low overnight, say 14 hours. That broth is just out of this world plus you can pick the meat out of that and use it for tacos, casseroles, stews, sometimes I just eat it on a sandwich for lunch. I use all my chicken carcasses to make broth, roosters, hens, cockerels, and pullets. You can cook the entire chicken this way but a lot of the meat will fall off the bone. It may be hard lifting the various serving pieces out without them falling apart.
Yes, I know where those feet have been walking. By scalding them I can peel them and twist the toenails off. That gets them clean enough for me. There is an art to scalding them though. If you over-scald, which everyone will the first time, the skin gets really weak and just tears. It’s a pain to skin them. I bring water to a boil, drop the feet in, then 15 seconds later dump that in the sink to stop them from further cooking. As with everything, you get better with practice.
Don’t be too hard on your husband. There is a definite learning curve when it comes to butchering chickens. Older roosters are the hardest too. They have a lot of connective tissue that younger birds and the females just don’t have. That becomes noticeable around 5 months and very noticeable soon after.
A lot of times I don’t have tremendous success the first time I do something. You’ll either get better or decide it’s not for you.
