OK, new birds in the freezer...now how do I eat them?!?

[Hummingbird Hollow]

My advice is find a delicious sounding new recipe that is appropriate for a 20 week cockerel and treat yourself to the most delicious chicken dinner you can. I just finished processing my first ever meat birds and I wanted to prove to myself and to my husband that the experience was worth the effort. I almost always purchase either boneless chicken breasts or leg quarters and either bake or grill them pretty much the same way all the time...the occasional casserole or pot pie perhaps. In the past several weeks I've made two different roasted chicken recipes, we've had chicken noodle soup, chicken and barley soup, chicken cesear salads (soups and salads from leftovers) not to mention chicken liver pate and grilled chicken livers. I've made chicken sausages with apple and mango and we smoked one pullet and enjoyed outstanding chicken sandwiches. Try to celebrate the fact that these were "special" chickens and deserve "special" recipes. You've gone through a lot of extra work to raise and butcher these chickens, so why not really enjoy the fruits of your labors. For me, it's brought some creativity and adventure back into cooking, because at one point my husband asked me to "never do this again" (raise meat birds). They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach and over the course of the winter I want to seduce him with awesome food!

 

[Judy]

You might be interested in this article:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ats-from-historic-chicken-breeds#post_3473262

 

[Grumpy old man]

if you can't figuire out how to eat them then stop breeding them , this can't be an honest question ?

 

[loanwizard]

Well I see why you call yourself a grumpy old man. I once had no clue how to prepare a spent hen.

 

[erinszoo]

Best advice I ever got was to leave them in the freezer until you couldn't remember which one was which, then it didn't matter any more. It worked for us but it took about two months the first time. After that it didn't matter because we always butcher some before we run out in the freezer and then we really don't know which is which ... they are just dates on the bag.

 

[bruceh]

first a 20 week old bird is tender. if this is the first time you slaughter it is weird. however with the taste you get over that real quick. you can cook the bird as normal or cut it up and fry it. i cook my birds a slightly lower temp. 275 to 300. check it with a meat thermometer. of course it will take a little longer but very good. you can also slow cook it in a crock pot and make chicken salad or whatever. however remember to let chicken rest in the fridge for a couple days before you cook it. it is ok if you froze the chicken before letting it rest. just remember that when you thaw it out wait a couple days to let the rigor pass or the chicken will be tough.
i remember when i did my first slaughter. i had done cornish cross meat birds. the biggest was fat bass tard . i knew it was him when i ate him. he weighed 11.4 lbs dressed out for the oven. he was hard to not to reconize. it was strange but i quickly got over that with mash potatoes and green beans. the left over i made chicken salad. the carcass went to the chickens. they picked it clean.
just remember chickens don't have human emotion. the missing them is a human emotion. if you ever do a slaughter around your other chickens they will be the first to see what they can grab, they don;t care if it was brother henry, uncle sal, pa pa joe , or mommy dearest. they will eat them whole and never leave a scrap.

 

[Appylover]

When I butchered out my first bird I had a real ick factor on the fact I had raised this bird myself. So I hid it in with a store bought chicken then had my husband fry it up so I could not tell the differance until I bit into it. It was the best tating chicken I had ever eaten. I bought a chicken simaler in size just for that reason. When I did my runner ducks I had a differant ick factor. I had not raised these birds myself and was not 100% sure how they were fed. Now I have the same issue with store bought chicken just not sure what went into them.

 

[chooniecat]

You clean one the same as the other. I have my meat chickens processed, but if I did it myself, I would rest them in the fridge for a day or two to get the rigor out for tenderness.

If you are going to "boil" the spent layer, it isn't necessary as the boiling will eventually tenderize the meat.

Case in point- 1st one I ever did, boiled for an hour, added noodles.... felt like I was eating rubber bands and noodles. Bless her heart, my girlfriend ate it and told me it was good. Me tastebuds and jawbones knew better.

I now use the pressure cooker for 45 minutes. Bones fall out of the meat. I pick bones and blood from back as well as other undesirable cartilage and whatnot, then prepare or can the rest.

If you have never used a pressure cooker, you are missing the boat. Sundays, I used to get up early to put the meat in the oven (Round Steaks, English Roasts, tough meats) so we could eat around 2 or 3. Now, about 1 1/2 hours including prep and bringing the cooker to pressure and it is gravy time.

HAVE to get a used pressure cooker somewhere because I think this is the way to go from all I have been told. My son is processing 3 of our cockerels as I type and the breast meat looked great(22 wk old birds) and am going to grill those(the rest of bird is being simmered for soup but son wanted to try the breast meat in Huli Huli recipe I use). As far as getting used to it I DID. Initially was disturbed but MADE my self eat the soup(was excellent) and 20 or so birds later its fairly routine. I refuse to buy commercial birds because of the way they are treated/raised etc and this is the ONLY way to get chicken for us so....Thats what I tell myself when processing. The meaties were the hardest because they wee just babies when we processed them and somehow I was disturbed by that(plus they smell horrid comparitively!!) I do buy meaties(cornish x) from a farm closeby I researched. Good luck and keep at it. It seems to get easier with the reasoning for doing it.

 

[what did I do]

first a 20 week old bird is tender. if this is the first time you slaughter it is weird. however with the taste you get over that real quick. you can cook the bird as normal or cut it up and fry it. i cook my birds a slightly lower temp. 275 to 300. check it with a meat thermometer. of course it will take a little longer but very good. you can also slow cook it in a crock pot and make chicken salad or whatever. however remember to let chicken rest in the fridge for a couple days before you cook it. it is ok if you froze the chicken before letting it rest. just remember that when you thaw it out wait a couple days to let the rigor pass or the chicken will be tough.
i remember when i did my first slaughter. i had done cornish cross meat birds. the biggest was fat bass tard . i knew it was him when i ate him. he weighed 11.4 lbs dressed out for the oven. he was hard to not to reconize. it was strange but i quickly got over that with mash potatoes and green beans. the left over i made chicken salad. the carcass went to the chickens. they picked it clean.

just remember chickens don't have human emotion. the missing them is a human emotion. if you ever do a slaughter around your other chickens they will be the first to see what they can grab, they don;t care if it was brother henry, uncle sal, pa pa joe , or mommy dearest. they will eat them whole and never leave a scrap.

Your cockerels are better than anything you can get at the store. They do not need to be pressure cooked (unless you want to cook them that way). Cook them the same way you would cook any other chicken.

I just canned some of my cockerels but they didn't need to be canned. I canned them tor ease of use not to make them eatable.

Cook the first one when you don't have time to think about where it came from. Once you taste it it won't matter anymore.

 

[what did I do]

if you can't figuire out how to eat them then stop breeding them , this can't be an honest question ?

 

This sounds like my husband. LOL there is alittle truth to it. There is a hump to get over and if you can't get over it then you can take his advice. LOL