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Chicken killing and "aging"


Sher.eats

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hey everybody!

visited a chicken farm (free range, organic) and had a chicken killed via neck snapping, instead of the typical neck-slotting (so the process was very "clean" and the chicken wasn't "stressed").

took the chicken home and plucked its feathers, carefully removed the internal organs (and ate them). Gently washed the skin and the cavity and patted very dry with towels.

chicken is now wrapped in a fresh towel in a 4C fridge

1) are there any benefits in letting the chicken "age" in the fridge? if so how long is should the aging period be, what are the health "cautions"?

2) here in hong kong, chickens are killed by slotting the neck and draining the blood. my chicken was killed by snapping the neck, presumably the "blood" is still "in" my chicken, is this good or bad?

==

on a separate note, I also visited a chicken shop in Hong Kong who claims to be the only place who "air dries its chicken". The have a website it's in Chinese, but the details are the chicken is killed (not sure how) then gutted then washed (? ) then placed in a 3C enviroment for 24 hours to "limit bacteria growth", then the chicken is place in a vacuum sealed bag, the packaging says the chicken can be kept for up to 5 days from killing. I bought one of these. Anybody knows more about this "air dried" process?

THANK YOU!!!

~ Sher * =]

. . . . .I HEART FOOD. . . . .

Sleep 'til you're hungry, eat 'til you're sleepy. - Anon

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My understanding is that rigor mortis gets underway in poultry about an hour after slaughter. If you could butcher and cook the bird within this timeframe, you'd have some unusual and very fresh tasting chicken.

Enzyme action starts to loosen up the tensed muslces after several hours, and probably completes its work after a day or two. But the bird should be properly hung for this to happen, and the temperature needs to be right (I have no idea how to do it ...)

After this one or two day age, the chicken should be at its most tender and have the best flavor. It doesn't benefit from extended aging, like beef.

I have no idea how common these practices are. My butcher gets local poultry that's freshly killed; judging by the eyes they were walking around within 12 hours of the time I buy them. And they're not hung; they're kept in a display case on ice. And they taste great. So maybe I've never had poultry that's prepared as I describe.

Typically, "air drying" means that the bird isn't wrapped in plastic after it's been washed or steamed or whatever it is they do to get the feathers off and clean it. Factory chickens are wrapped wet and take on 10% or so of their weight in added water. Most artisinal birds (and I believe kosher birds) are air dried. Air drying makes for a more flavorful bird, and a crisper skin if you're roasting.

Notes from the underbelly

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In general, people don't age chicken: here the fresher the better (like fish).

People also tend to drain the blood from their chicken... in your case, it might be too late now. I do not know exactly how it affects the meat though.

Air drying only matters for refrigerated meat. Meat needs to be cooled quickly to avoid bacterial growth. In most places in North America, chicken are cooled in water, better chicken are generally air dried in large rooms with good airflow. A fresh warm chicken does not need to be cooled.

Since you are in China, you can probably find live chicken in some markets with people ready to kill them, pluck them and drain their blood for you... not sure about Hong Kong though.

I ate very good chicken in China a few years ago. All were killed a few hours before diner but I suspect that the way they were raised is a better explanation for their extraordinary taste.

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Thanks paulraphael,Magictofu!

So I'll let the chicken "sit" in the fridge for 48hours, hopefully there won't be "problems".

Still not sure about not draining the blood.

Going to make Thomas Keller's chestnut chicken in under pressure!

~ Sher * =]

. . . . .I HEART FOOD. . . . .

Sleep 'til you're hungry, eat 'til you're sleepy. - Anon

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Freshly killed chicken that is quickly prepared after slaughter and chicken that has been chilled/iced for a day or two and then cooked has a very different texture. I'd urge you to try both and compare them.

hey chrisamirault!

by quickly i guess before rigor mortis, which paulraphael says happens within an hour of killing. I guess next time I could rush home immediately...

can you describe more about the textural differences "fresh" vs "aged" and the respective advantages for different cooking techniques (roasting, poaching, sous vide)...

Thanks!

Edited by Sher.eats (log)

~ Sher * =]

. . . . .I HEART FOOD. . . . .

Sleep 'til you're hungry, eat 'til you're sleepy. - Anon

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My understanding is that rigor mortis gets underway in poultry about an hour after slaughter. If you could butcher and cook the bird within this timeframe, you'd have some unusual and very fresh tasting chicken.

Enzyme action starts to loosen up the tensed muslces after several hours, and probably completes its work after a day or two. But the bird should be properly hung for this to happen, and the temperature needs to be right (I have no idea how to do it ...)

After this one or two day age, the chicken should be at its most tender and have the best flavor. It doesn't benefit from extended aging, like beef.

I have no idea how common these practices are. My butcher gets local poultry that's freshly killed; judging by the eyes they were walking around within 12 hours of the time I buy them. And they're not hung; they're kept in a display case on ice. And they taste great. So maybe I've never had poultry that's prepared as I describe.

Typically, "air drying" means that the bird isn't wrapped in plastic after it's been washed or steamed or whatever it is they do to get the feathers off  and clean it. Factory chickens are wrapped wet and take on 10% or so of their weight in added water. Most artisinal birds (and I believe kosher birds) are air dried. Air drying makes for a more flavorful bird, and a crisper skin if you're roasting.

Rigor mortis starts rising in poultry soon after slaughter and peaks after only 2 to 2.5 hours, so you can avoid it only by cooking a bird very soon after slaughter - like maybe 30 minutes. Hong Kong is one of the few places we can do this, but the government is just this year ending the sell of 'fresh' (=killed to order) poultry in our local markets due to bird flu concerns.

Rigor in poultry largely dissipates about 8 hours after slaughter, so in commercial poultry, it's a non-issue by the time you buy it. There's no benefit in aging longer than a day. After that, you've just got a chicken that's not as fresh any more.

Re "air dried" - they probably mean air chilled, as opposed to water bath chilled. Lots of info here: http://naturalspecialtyfoodsmemo.blogspot....d-chickens.html

Hong Kong Dave

O que nao mata engorda.

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From wiki:

Rigor mortis is very important in meat technology. The onset of rigor mortis and its resolution partially determines the tenderness of meat. If the post-slaughter meat is immediately chilled to 15 °C, a phenomenon known as cold shortening occurs, where the muscle shrinks to a third of its original size. This will lead to the loss of water from the meat along with many of the vitamins, minerals, and water soluble proteins. The loss of water makes the meat hard and interferes with the manufacturing of several meat products like cutlet and sausage.

Cold shortening is caused by the release of stored calcium ions from the sarcoplasmic reticulum of muscle fibers in response to the cold stimulus. The calcium ions trigger powerful muscle contraction aided by ATP molecules. To prevent cold shortening, a process known as electrical stimulation is carried out, especially in beef carcass, immediately after slaughter and skinning. In this process, the carcass is stimulated with alternating current, causing it to contract and relax, which depletes the ATP reserve from the carcass and prevents cold shortening.

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Rigor mortis starts rising in poultry soon after slaughter and peaks after only 2 to 2.5 hours, so you can avoid it only by cooking a bird very soon after slaughter - like maybe 30 minutes. ...

Rigor in poultry largely dissipates about 8 hours after slaughter, so in commercial poultry, it's a non-issue by the time you buy it.

I think that's the big difference. I have had chicken killed in the afternoon that I've served later that evening, and thus would be within that rigor mortis period. The meat is more, well, stiff. It's hard to describe. FWIW, I documented an experience obtaining freshly killed chicken here.

Chris Amirault

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Sir Luscious got gator belts and patty melts

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My understanding is that rigor mortis gets underway in poultry about an hour after slaughter. If you could butcher and cook the bird within this timeframe, you'd have some unusual and very fresh tasting chicken.

Enzyme action starts to loosen up the tensed muslces after several hours, and probably completes its work after a day or two. But the bird should be properly hung for this to happen, and the temperature needs to be right (I have no idea how to do it ...)

After this one or two day age, the chicken should be at its most tender and have the best flavor. It doesn't benefit from extended aging, like beef.

I have no idea how common these practices are. My butcher gets local poultry that's freshly killed; judging by the eyes they were walking around within 12 hours of the time I buy them. And they're not hung; they're kept in a display case on ice. And they taste great. So maybe I've never had poultry that's prepared as I describe.

Typically, "air drying" means that the bird isn't wrapped in plastic after it's been washed or steamed or whatever it is they do to get the feathers off  and clean it. Factory chickens are wrapped wet and take on 10% or so of their weight in added water. Most artisinal birds (and I believe kosher birds) are air dried. Air drying makes for a more flavorful bird, and a crisper skin if you're roasting.

Rigor mortis starts rising in poultry soon after slaughter and peaks after only 2 to 2.5 hours, so you can avoid it only by cooking a bird very soon after slaughter - like maybe 30 minutes. Hong Kong is one of the few places we can do this, but the government is just this year ending the sell of 'fresh' (=killed to order) poultry in our local markets due to bird flu concerns.

Rigor in poultry largely dissipates about 8 hours after slaughter, so in commercial poultry, it's a non-issue by the time you buy it. There's no benefit in aging longer than a day. After that, you've just got a chicken that's not as fresh any more.

Re "air dried" - they probably mean air chilled, as opposed to water bath chilled. Lots of info here: http://naturalspecialtyfoodsmemo.blogspot....d-chickens.html

hey HKDave!

hmm you say 8 hours but paulraphael says one-two days haha. The 30min window is pretty short to bring the chicken home, clean and cook hmm...my one has been killed for 36 hours now and I'll have it for lunch (roast whole or portion then sous vide hmm...)

The HK gov is buying back live poultry retail licenses, the price isn't high but most sellers are approaching retirement age anyway so most are selling the business. There are a few remaining, one of them is in Yuen Long and is where I visited and bought the chicken. Here's an article in Chinese on it: http://fatboyeat.blogspot.com/2008/10/blog-post_30.html

Thanks!!

Edited by Sher.eats (log)

~ Sher * =]

. . . . .I HEART FOOD. . . . .

Sleep 'til you're hungry, eat 'til you're sleepy. - Anon

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Rigor mortis starts rising in poultry soon after slaughter and peaks after only 2 to 2.5 hours, so you can avoid it only by cooking a bird very soon after slaughter - like maybe 30 minutes. ...

Rigor in poultry largely dissipates about 8 hours after slaughter, so in commercial poultry, it's a non-issue by the time you buy it.

I think that's the big difference. I have had chicken killed in the afternoon that I've served later that evening, and thus would be within that rigor mortis period. The meat is more, well, stiff. It's hard to describe. FWIW, I documented an experience obtaining freshly killed chicken here.

hey chrisamirault!

so i guess if chicken is for dinner it should be killed in the early morning...what's the textural (and flavour?) difference between a chicken cooked 30min after death vs 8+ hours?

==

does anyone know about draining blood if chicken was neck-snapped?

thanks!

~ Sher * =]

. . . . .I HEART FOOD. . . . .

Sleep 'til you're hungry, eat 'til you're sleepy. - Anon

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hmm you say 8 hours but paulraphael says one-two days haha.

My source is Harold McGee, whose book doesn't give many details on the timing.

"...most meat in the United States is aged only incidentally, during the few days it takes to be shipped packing plant to market. This is enough for chicken, which benefits from a day or two of aging, and for pork and lamb, which benefit from a week (the unsaturated fats of pork and poultry go rancid relatively quickly)."

"Rigor sets in (after about 2.5 hours in the steer, 1 hour or less in lamb, pork, and chicken) when the muscle fibers run out of energy, their control systems fail and trigger a contracting movement of the protein filaments, and the filaments lock in place. Carcasses are hung up in such a way that most of their muscles are stretched by gravity, so that the protein filaments can't contract and overlap by much; otherwise the filaments bunch up and bond very tightly and the meat becomes exceptionally tough. Eventually, protein-digesting enzymes within the muscle fibers begin to eat away the framework that holds the actin and myosin filaments in place. The filaments are still locked together, and the muscles cannot be stretched, but the overall muscle structure weakens, and the meat texture softens. This is the beginning of the aging process. It becomes noticeable after about a day in beef, after several hours in pork and chicken."

So it seems possible that a significant amount of aging happens in 8 hours ... maybe that's all a chicken really needs. What I take from McGee is that there is at least a chance that more than a day of aging is beneficial, but that more than two is not.

From personal experience I know chickens can be delicious and tender 12 or 14 hours after slaughter. But I don't think I've had any that were fresher than that.

Edited by paulraphael (log)

Notes from the underbelly

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hmm you say 8 hours but paulraphael says one-two days haha.

My source is Harold McGee, whose book doesn't give many details on the timing.

"...most meat in the United States is aged only incidentally, during the few days it takes to be shipped packing plant to market. This is enough for chicken, which benefits from a day or two of aging, and for pork and lamb, which benefit from a week (the unsaturated fats of pork and poultry go rancid relatively quickly)."

"Rigor sets in (after about 2.5 hours in the steer, 1 hour or less in lamb, pork, and chicken) when the muscle fibers run out of energy, their control systems fail and trigger a contracting movement of the protein filaments, and the filaments lock in place. Carcasses are hung up in such a way that most of their muscles are stretched by gravity, so that the protein filaments can't contract and overlap by much; otherwise the filaments bunch up and bond very tightly and the meat becomes exceptionally tough. Eventually, protein-digesting enzymes within the muscle fibers begin to eat away the framework that holds the actin and myosin filaments in place. The filaments are still locked together, and the muscles cannot be stretched, but the overall muscle structure weakens, and the meat texture softens. This is the beginning of the aging process. It becomes noticeable after about a day in beef, after several hours in pork and chicken."

So it seems possible that a significant amount of aging happens in 8 hours ... maybe that's all a chicken really needs. What I take from McGee is that there is at least a chance that more than a day of aging is beneficial, but that more than two is not.

From personal experience I know chickens can be delicious and tender 12 or 14 hours after slaughter. But I don't think I've had any that were fresher than that.

hey paulraphael! sorry for late reply haha. Thanks for the McGee info, I ended up cooking the chicken 36 hours after death. Next time I'll try to cook one that's been dead for less than an hour...

~ Sher * =]

. . . . .I HEART FOOD. . . . .

Sleep 'til you're hungry, eat 'til you're sleepy. - Anon

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Here is my "report" on my observations (and some cooking pics)

On Wednesday afternoon a free range chicken was killed via neck snapping, as such there was no wound and no blood loss. The chicken didn't really struggle and the meat (thigh and breast) did not tense up...

gallery_53057_6304_296549.jpg

At home, 4 hours after death, the meat has gone slightly firmer.

gallery_53057_6304_278500.jpg

Feathers plucked one by one, without predunking chicken in warm water. It's pretty easy actually, although the feathers attached to the wing grows ~ 2cm into the skin. The butt of the chicken was wiped and sprayed with alcohol to (hopefully) do some disinfection. Then a small cavity was cut, and the giblets were removed, carefully not breaking anything especially the stomach and intestines. The trachea and esophagus were removed via the neck. The chicken was briefly washed and thoroughly dried, wrapped in towel and placed in the fridge. At this point the flesh is firm to touch and the skin is slightly "plastic" .

gallery_53057_6304_241290.jpg

36 hours later, Friday afternoon, the chicken was removed from the fridge. The skin has developed a deep yellow colour with nice red hues, the feel is soft and sticky, totally unlike supermarket chickens' wet and rubbery skins. I think not draining the blood may have caused the red-hued skin? The wings were "frenched out"...

gallery_53057_6304_284154.jpg

Breasts, wings, legs, scallops yet to be removed. The flesh is amazing soft, as soft as sashimi grade scallops. The texture is smooth and slightly oily. There was no "juice" or "blood" even in the deep areas of the thigh. I have no idea where the blood went.

gallery_53057_6304_264847.jpg

To test the meat, the tenderloins were browned in a hot pan with butter on one side, the other side just "kissed" the pan for seconds. No seasoning before frying (Murray river salt on the side). A simple shallot-ginger infused olive oil was brushed onto the chicken. The dry-touching fillets did not release much moisture when fried which helped the nice browning. The muscle grain was near nonexistant, just like a scallop. The chicken flavour was deep and robust with a "long tail" of aromas. There was a slight game-like finish, this could be the breed or the free range or the non blood drain or the "dry aging".

gallery_53057_6304_324911.jpg

This is the breast, sous vided with beurre monte at 60C for 20 min, cooled, then the skin crisped on a hot pan. The chicken yield less than 1ml of "juice" into the bag, which was reemulsified with the butter for a sauce. There was no other flavouring added except the salt and pepper. The skin crisped out amazing, with "bubbles" forming which yield a nice "crack", I thought the sous vide process will cause the skin to absorb moisture but yet the skin was done after less than 30 seconds on the hot pan. The texture I expected to be slightly tougher than the tenderloins and they were, but only the slightly, but still easily the most tender chicken (yet still with flavour) that I've ever eaten, comparable to a French Bresse haha. There was more "rose" in the breast, not sure if because of the blood drain but the effect on flavour is positive.

gallery_53057_6304_339032.jpg

Feeling confident, decided to try a harder recipe heavily based on one from Under Pressure by TK. The leg was deboned and the tendons removed. Some muscles were removed and others butterflied to create an even surface.

gallery_53057_6304_272395.jpg

A mousse of smoked bacon (25% fat), dry-sauted shitake mushooms, egg yolk and seasoning was spread onto the meat...

gallery_53057_6304_350316.jpg

..rolled in cling film and sous vided at 64C for 1 hour.

gallery_53057_6304_94892.jpg

Skin was crisped on hot pan after sous vide, dish served with honey-chicken stock-butter glazed chestnuts and "micro celery". The recipe wanted Activa to bind the mousse into the chicken as well as the ends of the chicken, I didn't have Activa but it worked out ok. The mousse which was nicely pink after blending turned grey after cooking...but the thigh meat was gorgeously pink! It was late (1am) and the saucing...could be done better. Without this chicken (as supposed to other market chickens) this recipe would not work as the meat wouldn't be soft enough to "bend", soft enough to be cooked at low temp for "short" time, did not release much juice into the bag and the skin wouldn't be crisped so easily and nicely.

So in conclusion:

1) Small muscle fiber = Breed

2) "Soft" meat = Breed and/or Not stressing chicken at death and/or Aging for 36 hours

3) "Waxy/dry" (in a good way) meat" = Breed and/or Not dunking chicken to remove feathers and/or Aging

4) Intense flavour = Breed and/or Free range and/or Aging and/or Not draining blood and/or (maybe) Not stressing chicken at death?

5) "Dry soft" skin = Not dunking chicken to remove feathers and/or Aging

6) "Rose" skin and flesh = Not dunking chicken to remove feathers and/or Aging and/or Not draining blood

That's it!

Edited by Sher.eats (log)

~ Sher * =]

. . . . .I HEART FOOD. . . . .

Sleep 'til you're hungry, eat 'til you're sleepy. - Anon

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Great report Sher.eats, thanks. Here's what we do:

1. Hang a live (very important) chicken by feet using a rope loop attached to an overhead beam.

2. With the knife in its beak, sever neck artery and let drain.

3. Dunk bird into hot (150F) water to loosen feathers.

4. Pluck feathers -- we have a drum with radiating rubber fingers than spin at 100 rpm. It's like an axe on a grinder, with a chicken instead of an axe.

5. Remove head, feet and eviscerate.

6. Rinse, bag and cook within a few days, or vacu-seal an freeze.

There's no intent to age the bird. The fresher the better in my experience.

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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Great report Sher.eats, thanks. Here's what we do:

1. Hang a live (very important) chicken by feet using a rope loop attached to an overhead beam.

2. With the knife in its beak, sever neck artery and let drain.

3. Dunk bird into hot (150F) water to loosen feathers.

4. Pluck feathers -- we have a drum with radiating rubber fingers than spin at 100 rpm. It's like an axe on a grinder, with a chicken instead of an axe.

5. Remove head, feet and eviscerate.

6. Rinse, bag and cook within a few days, or vacu-seal an freeze.

This is what I do with my chickens (and turkeys and guineas), except that I dry-pluck them. The feathers come out nearly as easily as for a scalded bird,as long as you work quickly and start with the big wing feathers. If you wait too long, those feathers are impossible to pull without a dunking in hot water.

April

One cantaloupe is ripe and lush/Another's green, another's mush/I'd buy a lot more cantaloupe/ If I possessed a fluoroscope. Ogden Nash

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Nice report, Sher.

hmm you say 8 hours but paulraphael says one-two days haha.

My source is Harold McGee, whose book doesn't give many details on the timing.

The 8 hours I quoted above originally came from a meat science book on Google Books, but I didn't bookmark it and now I can't find it. Here are a few other sources.

Figure 2 on this page http://pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/pubcd/b1157-w.html shows rigor gone at 8-10 hours.

This study http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci...782004000300038 says (re chicken breast) "After this period, the curve had a similar performance, achieving values of less than 1 kgf in 4 hours or more, with complete aging being accomplished at 8 hours."

This patent http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5362507/description.html says "The need for the aging step which, in the case of chickens, turkeys and the like, requires the fowl or the parts thereof to be processed, to be placed in bags or other containers and stored for periods of up to eight hours, is that rigor mortis sets in some 2 1/2 to 3 hours after slaughter, giving rise to a progressive toughening of the meat."

This site http://www.redbirdchicken.com/mythsfacts.htm says:

"Normally, rigor develops in poultry 0.5 to 4 hours after death, and meat removed from the bone while it is in rigor will be tough. To avoid this toughening, meat should be "rested" before deboning. Red Bird boneless skinless breast meat is generally deboned between 7-10 hrs from initial processing. This resting period results in very tender meat."

So there's a bit of variation, but the consensus seems to be that rigor in poultry is gone by 7-10hrs.

Hong Kong Dave

O que nao mata engorda.

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Great report Sher.eats, thanks. Here's what we do:

1. Hang a live (very important) chicken by feet using a rope loop attached to an overhead beam.

2. With the knife in its beak, sever neck artery and let drain.

3. Dunk bird into hot (150F) water to loosen feathers.

4. Pluck feathers -- we have a drum with radiating rubber fingers than spin at 100 rpm. It's like an axe on a grinder, with a chicken instead of an axe.

5. Remove head, feet and eviscerate.

6. Rinse, bag and cook within a few days, or vacu-seal an freeze.

This is what I do with my chickens (and turkeys and guineas), except that I dry-pluck them. The feathers come out nearly as easily as for a scalded bird,as long as you work quickly and start with the big wing feathers. If you wait too long, those feathers are impossible to pull without a dunking in hot water.

April

Do you save the feathers? I'd like to but haven't done so yet, except for the big turkey plumes. The drum gizmo doesn't work very well on water fowl. For wild ducks I'm usually happy to liberate the breast meat without plucking, then compost the rest.

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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So there's a bit of variation, but the consensus seems to be that rigor in poultry is gone by 7-10hrs.

Good to know; that explains why my butcher's birds are so good late in the day of slaughter.

I'm still curious about the hanging part. I've read that meat, including poultry, should be hung during the rigor period, otherwise it won't relax properly. But that doesn't seem to be people's experience here.

Notes from the underbelly

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Do you save the feathers? I'd like to but haven't done so yet, except for the big turkey plumes. The drum gizmo doesn't work very well on water fowl. For wild ducks I'm usually happy to liberate the breast meat without plucking, then compost the rest.

I save just a few feathers to look at, as I'm not sure what to do with all of them. My first attempt to pluck a goose ranks as one of the worst culinary experiences of my life. I can't believe anyone ever has the patience to pluck a goose for roasting.

More on topic, in my dim memory, I recall reading a website about hanging fowl. The purpose of hanging was to tenderize older, tougher birds and to develop a gamey or "high" flavor in the meat. The guy who had the website was from somewhere in Great Britain, I think. He butchered his own birds and aged them for quite a long time--on the order of a couple weeks. He would snap their necks and hang them whole (with innards and feathers intact). The birds were hung by their feet in an area that was just above freezing. He stressed that the carcasses should be uncut, because any cuts or wounds would be a point of entry for bacteria, which would lead to rot. I don't recall what he had to say about the bacteria already in the gut. . .

I haven't tried this. I just stew my old, tough birds.

April

One cantaloupe is ripe and lush/Another's green, another's mush/I'd buy a lot more cantaloupe/ If I possessed a fluoroscope. Ogden Nash

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hey everyone thanks for replying!

Peter the eater

Your instructions are similar to the typical method used here in Hong Kong. I wanted to dry plucking the chicken for crispier skin and not draining the blood for more flavour and pinkness in meat. You say "The fresher the better in my exerience", have you tried cooking a chicken killed for less than 2 hours (before rigor mortis) and ~4 hours (the peak of rigor)? I kept a few "nice" feathers for keeping.

Azureus

I plucked the chicken 4 hours after death, no problems with the small feathers but the big wing feathers grows so deep in the flesh I had to "twist" before plucking. Re: Hanging fowl: Have you seen those ducks hung on walls of Bistros in France (especially Lyon), usually next to a rabbit. I wonder if their organs have been removed....

Magictofu

Thanks, glad you liked it!

HKDave

Thanks for all those sources! So having a chicken killed in the afternoon for diner is the worst case sceneario haha. If you had a chicken killed for 10 hours would you cook it or wait a few more hours for enzyme action to further tenderise the meat as well as "drying" the meat a bit?

Paulraphael

My chicken was fridged in the "roasting position", hanging it actually makes sense to "stretch" the muscles althought this will use up a lot of fridge space. Same question to you as HKDave: "If you had a chicken killed for 10 hours would you cook it or wait a few more hours for enzyme action to further tenderise the meat as well as "drying" the meat a bit?"

Thanks everyone!!

Edited by Sher.eats (log)

~ Sher * =]

. . . . .I HEART FOOD. . . . .

Sleep 'til you're hungry, eat 'til you're sleepy. - Anon

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. . . . You say "The fresher the better in my exerience", have you tried cooking a chicken killed for less than 2 hours (before rigor mortis) and ~4 hours (the peak of rigor)?
Now that I think about it, any chicken that I've cooked the same day as the slaughter has had at least four hours to age. When I said "the fresher the better" I was thinking in days, not hours.

Peter Gamble aka "Peter the eater"

I just made a cornish game hen with chestnut stuffing. . .

Would you believe a pigeon stuffed with spam? . . .

Would you believe a rat filled with cough drops?

Moe Sizlack

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More on topic, in my dim memory, I recall reading a website about hanging fowl.  The purpose of hanging was to tenderize older, tougher birds and to develop a gamey or "high" flavor in the meat.  The guy who had the website was from somewhere in Great Britain, I think.

In Britain, "hanging" typically means aging. I'm curious about hanging the sense of hanging it upside down by the feet during the rigor period. Not sure if it's supposed to be chilled for this, or how big a difference it makes.

Edited by paulraphael (log)

Notes from the underbelly

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People do hang some wild birds. We call this "faisander" in French (you should recognize the word "pheasant" in the word). Not all birds benefit from this I am told.

HFW has a chapter on game birds which address this issue in his Meat book.

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