Roasting a free-range chicken

[MelissaH]

Has anyone successfully roasted a free-range chicken that spent its life running around and otherwise working out?

 

Over the summer, we participated in a chicken CSA. As a result, we have a freezer full of free-range whole birds, all about 4 pounds. We tried roasting one whole (I think I usually season the bird, rest it on a slice or two of bread in a lightly oiled low-sided baking dish, and put it in the oven at 400 °F till it's done), and while the flavor was superb, we found that it was much tougher than a supermarket chicken: the breast meat needed significant chewing, and the legs and thighs were really too tough to eat. We wound up cooking them further, as part of a casserole or braise or something along those lines for dinner the next night, IIRC. With more cooking time, the chicken was really good. We made another of the chickens into soup, and it had terrific flavor; the meat got enough cooking time that it was really nice.

 

I'd like to try roasting another of our birds, but this time getting the whole thing edible the first night, as I prefer dark chicken meat to white. I'm wondering if I'd do better with a lower temperature and longer cooking time. Has anyone had success making a roast well-exercised chicken? Any guesses at how long it will need to stay in the oven to tenderize enough to eat? Is there an alternative cooking method I should consider instead? We like crispy skin, and we'd like to turn the carcass and any leftover meat into soup tomorrow night.

[Okanagancook]

Modernist Cuisine at Home, p 105 has a recipe for slow roast chicken.  170F for about three hours.  The bird is brined, dismembered and then covered in sliced onions.

 

or you could go long and slow on steam bake in the CSO.  This worked well for my pork butt roast.

[MelissaH]

Alas, no CSO. Just a Breville XL, which can hold a quarter-sheet pan.

[Anna N]

It sounds like what you have is a stewing hen which will make a superb coq au vin but is unlikely to give you satisfactory results when roasted.  Sounds like those legs have been given such a workout that you have the equivalent of beef shin - fabulous when braised but inedible when cooked using dry heat.  

[MelissaH]

I emailed the farmer, and learned that the birds basically go straight into an ice bath to get them cold, then into a commercial freezer. Is part of my issue perhaps that the chickens are frozen while they're still in rigor mortis, since they don't have a chance to relax?

[MelissaH]

31 minutes ago, Anna N said:

It sounds like what you have is a stewing hen which will make a superb coq au vin but is unlikely to give you satisfactory results when roasted.  Sounds like those legs have been given such a workout that you have the equivalent of beef shin - fabulous when braised but inedible when cooked using dry heat.  

Anna, these chickens were all hatched and slaughtered this year. Is it possible to have a stewing hen that's only a couple of months old?

[Anna N]

 

On 03/11/2016 at 7:38 AM, MelissaH said:

Anna, these chickens were all hatched and slaughtered this year. Is it possible to have a stewing hen that's only a couple of months old?

Probably not. Your initial post did not give any indication that they were slaughtered that early. Perhaps you could ask the farmer who raised them how best to cook them. 

[MelissaH]

3 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 

 

Probably not. Your initial post did not give any indication that they were slaughtered that early. Perhaps you could ask the farmer who raised them how best to cook them. 

He farms. He doesn't cook. (I asked over the summer, while the farmer's market was still in session.)

[ProfessionalHobbit]

We had one on Sunday as a matter of fact.  

 

I haven't yet posted the pix in the Dinner! thread, but it came out moist and juicy, with well-flavored meat and tissue-paper crispy skin.

 

We devoured part of the leftovers last night, and the carcass will give up the rest of its goodness this weekend after an exercise in stock-making.

 

Much better than an order of Blue Apron 100% of the time -- this is totally OT but I couldn't resist.

[Anna N]

32 minutes ago, MelissaH said:

He farms. He doesn't cook. (I asked over the summer, while the farmer's market was still in session.)

Hmmm.  How odd.  I have found most people selling their goods in the farmers'markets I used to visit were happy to tell me how to make the best of whatever they had to offer. I hope someone can give you the key to roasting these birds. 

[chromedome]

Meat birds are slaughtered very young, so that's not an issue even when they're free-range. My GF's parents had a dozen Meat Kings this year, and at two months old they'd outgrown their legs and could barely move on their own. I'm guessing your birds were a dual-purpose breed, and slaughtered when they were a bit older. There's also the possibility your first bird was an outlier, and the others will be fine. It's hard to say. 

 

Low-and-slow is always worth a try. 

 

 

[Anna N]

4 minutes ago, ProfessionalHobbit said:

We had one on Sunday as a matter of fact.  

 

I haven't yet posted the pix in the Dinner! thread, but it came out moist and juicy, with well-flavored meat and tissue-paper crispy skin.

 

We devoured part of the leftovers last night, and the carcass will give up the rest of its goodness this weekend after an exercise in stock-making.

 

Much better than an order of Blue Apron 100% of the time -- this is totally OT but I couldn't resist.

One of the birds from the same supplier?

[ProfessionalHobbit]

2 minutes ago, Anna N said:

One of the birds from the same supplier?

 

Doubtful, unless Melissa lives in San Francisco and she's not telling us.

[Anna N]

7 minutes ago, ProfessionalHobbit said:

 

Doubtful, unless Melissa lives in San Francisco and she's not telling us.

As I suspected. I think it matters.  I bet Melissa has cooked many chickens before without any issues.  There seems to be something about the bird she cooked that didn't behave as expected. 

[ProfessionalHobbit]

Maybe.

 

I prefer free-range chicken and buy from our farmers' market whenever possible.  Never had a problem.

[NWKate]

Maybe try brining it then cooking low & slow?

[ProfessionalHobbit]

22 minutes ago, Anna N said:

As I suspected. I think it matters.  I bet Melissa has cooked many chickens before without any issues.  There seems to be something about the bird she cooked that didn't behave as expected. 

 

She asked

 

" Has anyone successfully roasted a free-range chicken that spent its life running around and otherwise working out?"

 

I was just answering her question.  I said nothing about whether the provenance of said chicken mattered...not sure why that elicited your response.  Sorry I bothered.

[MelissaH]

I haven't moved. :-)

 

We moved this chicken from the freezer downstairs into the refrigerator upstairs on Sunday afternoon. An hour ago, it still had ice freezing the neck to the cavity wall. So for dinner tonight, brining is not an option, unless we'd thought about dinner Wednesday way back sometime on Friday or Saturday.

 

Nonetheless, I gave it a quick rinse to melt away the remaining ice. (As far as I could tell, the meat was thawed all the way through; the cavity was still frozen because air doesn't conduct heat as well as chicken.) It got salted and peppered, inside and out. I put a halved lemon, a piece of onion that was kicking around the fridge, and sprigs of fresh rosemary and thyme in the cavity. It went into an oval baking dish, on top of a few slices of bread, and an hour ago at 3 PM, I put it into a 300 °F oven. I plan to take it out at about 6:00 tonight, so it can rest and be ready for dinner by 6:30. I'm about to check on it and add some halved potatoes to the dish (because I recognize that the bread might not be edible after three hours in the oven, even if it's covered by a bird).

 

@ProfessionalHobbit, at what temperature and for how long did you roast your bird?

[ProfessionalHobbit]

375 F, 2 1/2 hours.

 

Washed chicken, patted dry.  Salt, black pepper inside and out 24 hours in advance.  Herbs stuffed in cavity -- flat-leaf parsley, rosemary, thyme.  We trussed the chicken if memory serves.

 

That's about it.  Served with green beans, potato and heirloom tomatoes sauteed in olive oil and garlic, with a bit of salsa verde stirred in.

[Martin Fisher]

2 hours ago, MelissaH said:

....the birds basically go straight into an ice bath to get them cold, then into a commercial freezer.

 

This sort of rapid chilling can cause cold shortening which can lead to tough meat.

Genetics can also play a significant role in meat toughness.

[kayb]

I would think brining would be a big help. It has a tenderizing effect as well as adding some moisture back into meat that tends to be dry. My farm chickens are tractor chickens, so aren't as exercised as yours. I'd brine, and then roast low and slow. You could improvise steam-bake with a roasting pan with water in the bottom, chicken on a rack. Maybe 325 until the thermometer is where you want it?

 

Push comes to shove, marinate that baby in pineapple juice. Guaranteed to tenderize anything. Flavor may limit you to Polynesian-type preps, though.

[cyalexa]

I think the chickens I get at the farmers' market are pasture-raised.

I do the leap-frog method to flatten, divide 3 teaspoons of kosher salt over all surfaces and under the skin then put the bird in the refrigeorator on a rack overnight. Next day convection 250F until 168F in the breast,  about 70 min. Room temp for 30 to 60 min then 500 F until skin is brown. Rest before carving.  

[Thanks for the Crepes]

When I was eating the best chicken I've ever had, it was raised on my grandparent's farm. We got eggs and meat from them. The chix all had a hen house with nest boxes they could leave at will and forage in the very large yard for bugs and worms during the daytime. The yard was enclosed by a tall chainlink fence to keep out wildlife and their dogs. The chickens' diet was supplemented by grain. There was enough room that you would observe a pecking order, but no really destructive abuse like happens when creatures are confined in too small a space. With hundreds of chickens in there, grass still thrived.

 

The meat chix were harvested young. Grandpa would quickly wring their heads off by picking them up by the neck, once one of us young uns caught one for him. We started processing the carcasses immediately, but there was no ice water bath, and some of them laid around quite a while, because we put up sometimes 200 at the time. The extended family helped in the processing, got some of the meat, and returned the favor with beef or rabbit, or whatever.

 

I never remember a tough bird from the meat chix, harvested at the right time. We fried a bunch of it, as we are wont to do in the South. We also roasted some, and they were fine too, but probably helped along by their grain supplement, as it puts on fat.

 

Now, the egg-layers. When the grandfolks decided one of the hens was too old and wasn't laying anymore, she was destined for the dinner plates. That became a braised dish like chicken and dumplings or soup. These were delicious too, but I'd not try to fry or roast one. Wonder if Melissa's was maybe an older one, like AnnaN said?

[MelissaH]

If the first bird was an older one, the second one was also an older one. I don't believe this farmer sells his old layers unless you specifically ask for a stewing hen.

 

Last night's chicken, which I roasted at 300 °F for 3 hours and then let rest for 20 minutes, was also marvelously flavorful, and the skin was wonderfully crisp. It was less tough than the first chicken we roasted, but still not the best chicken, texturewise, I've ever eaten.

 

I'm going to draw the conclusion that for whatever reason, these chickens are better cooked by a moist method. Given the climate where I live, the beginning of hockey season, and the Instant Pot and stovetop pressure cooker in my kitchen, this will not be a hardship for us.

 

Now, off to peel the carrots and turn the remnants from last night into tonight's soup for dinner.

[donk79]

I cannot testify to how roasting these birds would do, but there was a time when I had some young (6-8 month) free range roosters that proved to me why too many roosters in a flock can be a problem.  Presented with a coq, I decided it was time to give coq au vin a try.  I can testify that these birds worked beautifully for this dish.

 

So while I cannot definitively say that your free ranging birds cannot be roasted, I bet they would work braised, even as young as they are.

 

I deeply hope that you do find a way to satisfactorily roast them.  If you do, I will note it carefully, and make use of it on unruly coq's in the future.