Friday, August 29, 2008

Two - High Temp Halves

For this test, I've got two birds again,Gold'n Plump on the right, mine on the left. Again, one a fair amount plumper, and shorter.This is the rub that I'll use on both birds. The recipe I'm using - High Temp Roast Butterflied Chicken from "The New Best Recipe" (If you don't have this book, get it...) calls for flavored butter to be rubbed under the skin on breast and thighs. I'm not doing that, because I'm hoping for cleaner, truer flavors to be evaluated. I'm just seasoning the surface of the skin and the inside of the cavity. I cut the backs away and down the center of the breasts, separating into halves.
I nestled the halves together on a roasting rack. The pinker skin is obvious on store bought bird on the left.
Mmmm. Both look extremely appetizing, although the gold color on the right is clearly visible.
Here are the halves with skin removed. This time my yardbird is on the left. At this point I'm noticing some things I hadn't before. Not only is the fat a deep yellow on the pasture raised bird, but there is substantially more of it. I don't know if most consumers would consider this a positive or negative trait, or if it's typical or simply a matter of my being too generous with the corn this summer. I think the mouth feel and tenderness of the home grown chicken are positively affected by fat under skin and between muscles, but diet conscious consumers may worry. I suppose it's like marbling in red meat - individuals' taste will vary. I find the flavor of richer meat something that warrants a few extra calories. I'm also surprised by the difference in bone length - I didn't expect the home grown bird to be so much longer of leg.
Side by side drumsticks, showing length and color differences. Dark meat is darker in the pasture bird, and while it appears less plump, the amount of meat each leg yielded showed the home grown to have as much or more edible meat.
Finally, a sampling of meat stripped from the carcasses, showing a mixture of thigh, leg, wing and some breast meat. Yellower, darker and more firm, the meat from the home grown bird was the favorite in this test. Tasters called store chicken "boring in comparison", "not as meaty", and "tastes like nothing". A blind test showed even young child tasters able to consistently distinguish which was which, and preferred the home grown meat, with comments running along the lines of "This one is just yummier." and "I can't say why, but I like this one best." This test had it's flaws as well, since my impartial judges had a last minute emergency and weren't available, so I used my family as tasters, but used the blind test to try to compensate for any pre-set notions. I think most diners that appreciate nuances and aren't adverse to dark meat would find the firm chew and richness of flavor that the pasture chicken provides appealing.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Cook One - Beer Can

The prep:
Both birds were seasoned with a basic brown sugar/salt type dry rub and left to marinate for 24 hours in the fridge.The home grown carcass was somewhat smaller, with more prominent bone structure and lower meat to bone ratio. The breast was much narrower. The skin was a gold yellow color, and seemed more dry with a noticeably pebbly texture. The carcass felt firm, with little "wiggle" to the joints. Extra skin was tidy, extra fat had been removed, natural truss kept legs bundled in and abdominal cavity was empty and clean.The Gold'n Plump carcass was substantially more filled out, with pudgy legs and rounded breasts. The skin was a pinkish white, somewhat wet and slippery with a much smoother texture. The carcass felt much more "loose", with legs flopping out to the sides and wings loose in their joints. Skin at the cavity was ragged, cavity was somewhat roughly cleaned with a few small pieces (testes, some kidney) still intact inside that were removed before cooking. Purplish coloring that appeared to be bruising was evident on lower legs.The chickens were mounted on their respective mostly-full Miller Light cans,and settled over an indirect fire on a Webber kettle charcoal grill.At this point the experiment went somewhat awry, as unexpected company arrived and I neglected my monitoring of the cooking process. Heat went too high, and skin was overdone on both birds. When I took them off, internal temperature of the breast meat had reached 190 degrees, substantially overcooking and drying. The home grown bird's skin seemed to brown more readily and evenly, although both chickens crisped up nicely and took on a very appealing color. The yellow cast to the free ranged broiler was clearly visible, giving golden undertones to the mahogany skin.
The meat was cut from the carcasses and served - the pasture raised bird is above in the photo, the commercial broiler below. When carving, I noticed some differences - home grown meat was more firmly connected - removing the thighs required a knife, while the other thighs pulled off easily on their own. Separating the drumstick from the thigh was the same, with one pulling apart with only slight effort by hand, the other requiring some knife work.

Visually, the meat was colored quite differently, with the free ranging creature showing a distinct yellowish or gold cast in the meat, and a quite strong gold color in the fat. It's thigh meat was darker, as well. The commercially grown meat was much more pale, pinkish white to white, with a few dark flecks of retained blood against the bone in the breast meat. Fat was white to translucent, and while both birds had a similar amount of fat under the skin and within the leg muscles, the intense coloring on the ranging bird made the fat much more noticeable to the eye.

Diners were served a thigh and breast portion from each broiler and asked to comment on similarities and differences in taste and texture. Most diners noticed a firmer texture of the home grown thighs, (although all diners stressed that this was not to an unpleasant degree) and some detected a deeper, more meaty flavor. The over-cooked qualities of the breast meat rendered both dry and many thought indistinguishable, although some felt that the industrial meat had a more "chalky" or "cottony" mouthfeel. One diner called the store-bought meat "more mushy", while another was somewhat off put by the "strange color" of the fat in the grass fed chicken.

In all, there was universal agreement that both chickens were delicious, but that a more accurate comparison might be achieved by using a more lightly seasoned and closely controlled cooking method. The dry rub, smoke and degree of done-ness interfered with the tasting enough that a clear favorite was not determined. However, there were no leftovers from either carcass, and diners left full and happy, eager to participate in the next phase of experimentation.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

The Second Contender


Contender number two is a "Gold'n Plump All Natural" broiler from my local food market. This bird was floor raised in a barn in Minnesota or Wisconsin for eight weeks, carefully fed in a controlled environment and killed using modern slaughter line equipment at eight weeks old. I buy the broiler un-frozen and cook before the sell-by date.

Monday, August 4, 2008

The First Contender

Contender one is a fourteen week old female broiler - a "Red Broiler" from Privet Hatchery who had Ranch Way Chick Grower to eat most of her life, and ranged free on my yard and pasture during the day and slept in a covered "Salatin Style" pen with her siblings and friends at night. She was killed using the Kosher method, scalded, hand plucked, rinsed with well water, had feet and head removed, rinsed again, hand evicerated, washed one more time, salted lightly and chilled in a cooler full of ice. After six or so hours she was carefully washed again in my sink, bagged and placed in my deep freeze. She'll thaw and age in the fridge 4 days before the comparison cook day.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

Industrial Broiler vs Yardbird


One spring I decided to try raising chickens.
I heard all kinds of advice, from the "What are you thinking? Chickens are such a nuisance!" to "Oh man, I sure miss home grown chicken - good for you!"
Some people told me that I couldn't raise chickens as cheaply, or as well, or as tender, or as good tasting as I can buy them, that butchering is a nightmare and that I'll traumatize my children.
Some told me that home grown chicken is so superior to store-bought that I'll never want to eat another industrial bird, and that my children will learn good and positive things about where food comes from and the cycle of life.
I'm far from knowing all the answers, but this document is a small piece in the puzzle, comparing the culinary qualities of my home-grown cluckers to the shrink-wrapped grocery store standard.