Who skins their birds?

[Mrs. K]

Moppet - I did the old boy and a young boy - so whatever the pressure cooker says. It was terrible.

Glad you had better results.

Mrs K

 

[3KillerBs]

Then I got to thinking 3KillerBs is from North Carolina - no wonder they seldom eat soup, does it even get cold?

Well, I'm *from* Pittsburgh, but I'm an adopted North Carolinian and love it here.

Soup season was longer in PA, but my family still didn't eat it more than once or twice a week and never in warm weather.

Considering other uses for broth, I did, I think, figure out why we so rarely had gravy when I was growing up. My mother grew up very poor and they had gravy with almost every meal -- even if it was only water, flour, and a dab of whatever grease might be available. Sop, if there was no flour to make gravy (that's water brought to a boil in the cooking pan and put into the gravy boat).

So I didn't grow up with gravy because, most likely, my mother didn't think of gravy as *food* but as what you ate when you didn't have real food. Barring holidays when you had a nice roast to make gravy that tasted good instead of gravy that filled your stomach so it didn't growl.

 

[Mrs. K]

Could very well be why.

Now, what for lunch, it sure isn't going to be chicken! haha

 

[NatJ]

never figured out what I could possibly do with canned chicken

I haven't used canned chicken, but I have plenty of uses for leftover cooked chicken. I would expect most of them to work with canned chicken as well.

(chicken-and-rice casserole, chicken salad, stir fry, chili, open-face sandwich with melty cheese on top, chicken pie, homemade things like "hot pockets," etc.)

 

[NatJ]

I have a hard time believing that it is faster or more convenient to pluck a chicken.

I think it would be faster and more convenient if someone is doing a large number of chickens, has a good scalding setup, and has a plucking machine. For a small number of chickens, even if someone does have all those things, the setup/cleanup time might not be worth it.

Personally, I find skinning faster than dry-plucking, and I'm undecided whether it's faster to dry-pluck or to mess with heating water on the kitchen stove and carrying it outside to scald the chicken. Once the chicken is actually scalded properly, the plucking is much easier & faster than doing it dry.

 

[3KillerBs]

I haven't used canned chicken, but I have plenty of uses for leftover cooked chicken. I would expect most of them to work with canned chicken as well.

(chicken-and-rice casserole, chicken salad, stir fry, chili, open-face sandwich with melty cheese on top, chicken pie, homemade things like "hot pockets," etc.)

I use left-over roast chicken all the time -- but it's dry, not wet in broth.

 

[NatJ]

I use left-over roast chicken all the time -- but it's dry, not wet in broth.

I've used boiled/simmered/stewed chicken in just about all of my recipes, too. I tend to figure that all "leftover chicken" is equivalent, no matter how it was cooked, unless it has some kind of strong seasoning.

It usually works fine.

After I lift the pieces of meat out of their liquid, they might drain a little more while they sit on the cutting board as I collect other ingredients, but it's definitely not long.

I suppose it would depend a lot on the details of your recipe, and whether canned chicken is somehow wetter than what I cook in water in a crock pot.

 

[Auntiejessi3]

Oh hell, I just realized I got this, and another thread mixed up, my bad,

I totally agree with this. Some people love kale, some people hate it. Some people like catfish, some hate it. Some might prefer extremely tender chicken like you get when you butcher them very young, some might call that mushy. To me this type of question is about as pure personal preference as you can get.

As a cockerel goes through puberty those hormones flavor the meat. Some like that flavor, some call it gamey and hate it. Those hormones also affect texture. Not all cockerels go through puberty on the same schedule so it is not tied that tightly to age. When you butcher those three you will probably notice that the male sex organs are different sizes. The larger those gonads are the more flavor and texture the meat should have. How you prepare it for cooking (brining or marinades) has an effect, let alone cooking method. The way I cook them I think 5 to 6 months old is great. If you fry or grill that is probably too old.

My main suggestion is to try something and see how you like it. If you tell us how you plan to cook it we can make suggestions. I assume you are talking about dual purpose cockerels. But to try to come up with a certain age that works best for everyone on the planet, it doesn't work that way.

They are English orps, and just depending on the weather smoking or roasting in the oven, we also dig a whole chicken in the crockpot deboned with gravy and veggies over rice or egg noodles

 

[Ridgerunner]

They are English orps, and just depending on the weather smoking or roasting in the oven, we also dig a whole chicken in the crockpot deboned with gravy and veggies over rice or egg noodles

I don't smoke or roast mine so I can't speak to those. There are people on here that do so hopefully they will chime in. I don't think age matters that much in a crock pot. I'd suggest 16 to 20 weeks old and cook him on low for 6 to 8 hours. Maybe start the chicken first and time the other stuff so they are not overcooked. I think before 20 weeks is when you get your most cost-effective growth. After that weight gain is slow.