Oh. I didn't see the bruises but it was pointed out to me in by someone in the grocery store. I thought they were talking about "bruised" as in ragged old chicken that wan't fresh like bruised vegetables. I looked to see if there was any water on the tray (indicating chicken was sitting in it tray for a while) there was none and the date was 11/7/18 for expiration so it looked fresh enough.
The purple and red parts were mostly in the wings and I missed it until I took it out of the packaging.
The only other time I ate cutter meat was when there was as skirt steak for sale at $8.99 a pound. What a deal! It's usually $13.99 or so so I bought it and seared it etc. The inside was dark purple and I thought it was because the meat was so fresh it didn't have time to oxidize and change color from purple to red. I googled it and found out otherwise and remembered that stuff I read in Modernist Cuisine.
I read that cutter meat is sort of a normal thing in the meat industry and is sold at a discount (hence the price I got). It's hard to sell to consumers so it's supposed to be sold to government lunch programs etc. (from stuff I read online). Here is one link https://meat.tamu.edu/2013/01/22/dark-cutting-beef/
The highest price I paid for a chicken was the Red Bro chicken at $50 at about $10 a pound for whole. It was grown in upstate NY. A Manhattan lawyer and his wife owned it but they live in NYC. It was good chicken and does taste different from standard supermarket chicken. It was buttery and had this depth of flavor...like it tasted good and felt healthy at the same time (that's the only words I could explain the taste). But for $35 a week for a 3.5 lb chicken normally, I think it's way to pricey. So thank god for Perdue.
I emailed Perdue and told them that I'm grateful for their super low affordable prices. I think I spent like $4.50 (not the $50 I paid for Red Bro) for this chicken so I don't care about a refund but I just wanted to grouse about it in a polite way and ask them for a "refund" owing to the flesh and processing.
Just my 2cents. I might throw away the remaining parts.
I salted the two thighs and drums sticks, added herb butter, and put them on a bed of Brussels sprouts in a 450 degree oven.
The salt was about 4 hours in the fridge 1 hour on the table and didn't penetrate the meat that deeply. It wasn't tough meat insofar as I could tell and no big difference in taste experience.
Ummm...the red bro does taste different than standard Perdue...but it's like this depth of flavor and yummy goodness in the protein that Perdue lacks. But at $10 a pound - fergetaboutit
