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10:10 am
February 10, 2011
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Hey Friends!
I've been away for a little while, with the busyness of summer and a full garden, but I'm back with a question on butchering. The only chickens we ever butcher are old laying hens and excess roosters. We have in the past, raised and butchered meat birds with lots more options for cooking and that was fun! But with these old birds, it seems like there is only one way to prepare the meat in an edible manner, and that is with lots of brine time and stewing and I'm bored with it! In the old days they could butcher up a chicken and eat it the same day, even fried and baked, and it must have been edible right? What's the secret? I know some breeds are better than others, but we have a variety and I've never noticed any being better than the other. Hmmm
Ideas? How did Grandma cook your Sunday picnic birds?? 
Mary
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10:35 am
December 14, 2010
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Sloooow cooking is the secret. Or you can bone them out and grind the meat and make sausage. Old hens were always stewing chickens, fryers were always young roosters in our family, any old bird would work for chicken salad.
12:04 pm
February 10, 2009
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Yep, I'm afraid old hens are always for soup and broth with me. I keep my old girls longer than is sensible, so the meat is pretty much inedible even for stewing. This is where I really wish I had a steam juicer because while I don't actually make juice much, it would be great for making broth since their meat is not very appetizing to me. I'll have some nice young roosters soon though!
Today's chicken breeds have the broodiness bred right out of them, and we tend to even not have roosters around which means we only order pullet chicks for egg production… Since modern hens so rarely set on a nest or hatch chicks, we don't have the 'extra roosters' or even 'too many hens' problem, so butchering is not such a viable option.
It's a bit too bad really, because back in the day, farm wives (somehow less insulting than being called a 'house' wife IMO) kept their best egg producers out of the stew pot, and made sure THEIR eggs were the ones that got hatched out, and culled out the poor producers so every chicken whether pullet or cockerel earned its keep in one way or another.
3:18 pm
February 10, 2011
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We have a few mommas sit every year to keep our stock young, so we get some young roosters from that, but they don't seem much different to me than the old hens meatwise… I wonder how Granny was always able to grab a chicken for frying that same day. Somewhere I read said if the meat doesn't get a chance to cool down, it could be less tough. Throwing right into your seasonings and then frying it. But then again, another place said if the meat doesn't chill completely in the fridge (before even being frozen) it would be far tougher than if all the tendons got a chance to chill and relax for 24 hours.
Ross, why does any old bird work for chicken salad? Isn't toughness still a problem there?
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9:19 pm
June 1, 2011
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I just pressure cooked my old hens. And it was the young chickens that were fried for our Sunday dinners.
12:33 am
February 22, 2010
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I remember my mom pressuring older chickens then removing from the broth…dredging in flour and browning in a small amt. of shortening.
8:16 am
January 26, 2010
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I've yet butcher an old hen or rooster and declare it inedible. As Ross said, the secret is slow cooking. I used to use the crock pot but prefer the even slower bake I get with a 175-200 degree oven. I usually do several at a time in the big roaster with broth or soup stock. They're done when the meat's tender and falling off the bone. The actual amount of time this takes will vary. Then I debone to use in soups, casseroles, on sandwiches, whatever. I'll use some right away, but most of the meat gets hot-packed into canning jars with broth and pressure-canned. And people who turn up their noses at bland canned chicken have never had good, home-canned old rooster – the flavor is wonderful.
8:20 am
December 14, 2010
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Older animals tend to have tough meat that requires long slow cooking. Added fat will help with the flavor and texture and incorporating some of the reduced stock will help to make it more moist. You can't expect an old chicken or cow to yield the same quality of meat as a young one.
9:31 am
May 6, 2010
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@Ross – I've never thought about grinding the meat from "older" birds for sausage – thanks for the tip!
We've always just cooled the birds after butchering and then I freeze or can them. (When I can – I raw pack bone-in pieces. It makes its own broth.)
The frozen birds (if I cook in the crockpot or at low heat in the oven) are tasty and tender. But they are pretty tough if I tried to grill them. My husband read that the birds should be aged a day (kept cold of course) and that will make them less tough. The flavor is stil very superior to the mass-produced factory chickens.
2:39 pm
February 10, 2011
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Yea, I had just seen a recipe for the ground old bird meat sausage. They just de-boned and ground it in a food processor, added seasonings and wrapped it away in the fridge to let the seasonings soak. Then grilled it up for pizza topping, omelet filling, or spaghetti sauce. Yum!
So, what about baking an old bird w/out skin? Even remotely possible??
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3:18 pm
December 14, 2010
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MaryMooCow said:
So, what about baking an old bird w/out skin? Even remotely possible??
You could do it bu it would be as dry as sawdust.
3:42 pm
January 26, 2010
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I always skin chickens instead of plucking them, and the old ones are always slow-baked in a covered pan, with broth. The only way they'd be dry is if if you let the pan go dry, and a good lid or tight cover of aluminum foil and careful checking solves that problem.
7:41 pm
December 14, 2010
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I have always scalded and plucked. So much of the fat and flavor are in the skin. My little sister was trying to dress a duck and pluck it without scalding and of coures the down wouldn't yield . I suggested they use a propane torch and snge the down off. it worked.
7:59 pm
June 1, 2011
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I've only ever had one freshly butchered chicken, and that is the one from my class this summer, just so you know.
My favorite way of cooking chicken if I'm not roasting it is a variation of Jeff Smith's Simmered Turkey, I just simmer a chicken instead. You cover the bird with water and cook until it falls off the bone. Broth and meat for whatever from the same cooking. Is that what you do?
Thanks!
Judi
9:33 pm
December 14, 2010
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Good grief you can cook chicken by roasting, broiling, steaming, stewing, cutting into small portions and frying with the bones still in place, deboning and cutting into small chunks and breading and frying. You can roast it and debone it and make chicken pot pies or you can make sandwich filling. I can skewer it and cook it over an open fire. You can do everything with chicken or turkey for that matter. You can even eviserate it, dip it several times into a slurry of clay and water and lay it directly into a fire and cook it that way, after a time the mud will dry and you can peel it off with the feathers and skin. That is when you salt and pepper it.
9:41 pm
February 10, 2011
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LauraP said:
I always skin chickens instead of plucking them, and the old ones are always slow-baked in a covered pan, with broth. The only way they'd be dry is if if you let the pan go dry, and a good lid or tight cover of aluminum foil and careful checking solves that problem.
I thought that would work. I've read as long as you oil the meat and baste them a lot, it doesn't really matter. You could always leave the skin on with the pin feathers just for cooking and remove it before serving… just not very pretty coming out of the oven! 
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10:43 pm
June 1, 2011
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Ross said:
Good grief you can cook chicken by roasting, broiling, steaming, stewing, cutting into small portions and frying with the bones still in place, deboning and cutting into small chunks and breading and frying. You can roast it and debone it and make chicken pot pies or you can make sandwich filling. I can skewer it and cook it over an open fire. You can do everything with chicken or turkey for that matter. You can even eviserate it, dip it several times into a slurry of clay and water and lay it directly into a fire and cook it that way, after a time the mud will dry and you can peel it off with the feathers and skin. That is when you salt and pepper it.
If you were responding to me, yes, I knew that chickens/turkeys could be cooked in all those ways. I was talking about the slow cooking of old birds, and asking if the method I use for store-bought birds was the same as that used for old roosters, etc.?
I've never cooked an "old bird" and wanted to know if there's a trick to it or if I did, would my tried & true method work?
If you weren't responding to me, well, I just put my foot in my mouth, and that's hardly the first time and I apologize for putting my .02 in!
Judi
11:47 am
February 10, 2011
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MaryMooCow said:
Yea, I had just seen a recipe for the ground old bird meat sausage.
Ooo, I found it! : http://www.waldeneffect.org/bl…..for_pizza/
Mmm, looks SO yummy! Look out roosters!
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