Poaching a whole chicken

[chazen328]

Any suggestions on how to easily poach a whole chicken?

 

[bigmike&nan]

Well if you've rinsed the bird and it is clean and free of feathers you could do two things just as easily as poach that bird, namely with some onions, carrots and celery also get a great chicken stock out of it (one to use to make any range of fantastic soups with). Tyler Florence of Food Network used to run a show called Food 911, one episode he did was help a young college student make great cheap eats. They used a whole chicken and poached it, thereby making great chicken stock and three fabulous soups. The video is hard to find, but the recipes are here. YOU NEED a tall hefty pot, a stock pot, place the rinsed bird, the vegetables and fill with COLD water, cold water helps break down the impurities in the ingredients. Heck, follow the recipe and prepare yourself for a great poached chicken and some amazing soups. Still soup weather in my part of the world.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food-911/soups-on/index.html

 

[chazen328]

Thanks I will check into it. The reason I ask is because I'm not sure what's wrong with our birds. We butchered our first batch of birds back in October and we cooked one in the rotisserie and it came out all rubbery and weird. We boiled a second bird and the breast meat was fine but the dark meat was rubbery or leathery... was very strange. The birds were less than a year old so I'm not sure what the problem is but someone said pressure cooking or poaching could prevent that from happening again and I sure hope so cause we've got about 25 more birds in the freezer.

 

[bigmike&nan]

Most commercially sold birds are pretty young. As part of my chef training we went to a chicken processing facility and got the low down. Let me look for my notes, I'll try to cut and paste them in here. Sounds like they may be a bit old. My memory is nothing more than 8 months commercially...

Notes from Chef Herve's French Regional Demo class:

CHICKEN
7 Types of Chicken:

1) Poussin: baby chicken, 3-4 wks. old, less than 1 lb., similiar in size to cornish game hen, young flesh-tender-trad. European bird, serves 1 person.

2) Cornish hen: 5-6 wks. old, approx 1 lb.

3) Fryer Chicken: 8-16 wks. old, 1.5-2.5 lb., delicate flavor-soft cartlidge,, most common bird used in kitchen, yellow skin birds are corn fed, pale birds are soy fed usually from Oklahoma, serve 1/2 bird per person.

4)Roaster: 5 months old, 2-5 lb., older bird w/stronger flavors. Used as stew meat. 1/2 bird is too much per person, serves 3 people.

5) Rooster: 10 months old, 6 lb., tough meat-stew.

6) Free Range Chicken: 8-12 wks. old, 1.5-2 lb. By law is raised with a minimum of 1 sq. ft. space. Real free range chickens are raised in barnyard, less risk of salmonella as birds get fresh air and EXERCISE. Should have USDA tag.

7) Capon: castrated male chicken, under 8 mo. old, weigh 1.5-3 lbs., big breast, tender, expensive (because of operation).