We ate our first homegrown (pastured heritage) chicken yesterday for supper. Oh, man. It was good. Quite possibly the best chicken I have ever eaten. I think we butchered at the perfect time (15ish weeks) – most of the chickens are about 3 pounds after processing, give or take, and so very tender and flavorful. Just a few more weeks, and they would’ve gotten muscle-y and tougher. Plus, they were already fighting too much, and few more weeks would have meant a higher feed bill. We’re shooting for 15-16 weeks next year, too.
I cooked the chicken by putting it in the crockpot with about 1 cup of water at the bottom. I rubbed sea salt, freshly ground lemon pepper, and some misc. herbs (parsley and oregano, I believe) over the body, and stuffed a few garlic scapes in the body cavity. I also put a few garlic scapes over the top. Oh, and I sprinkled a little minced dried garlic on top, too. I set the slow cooker on low for about six hours, and it was so tender that I switched to “Keep Warm.” Since it wasn’t supper time yet, I just unplugged it and let it sit for an hour or so, then turned it back on low for 20 minutes before supper.
I was surprised by how tender it was, and how big it was. The guy who did the processing for/with us is accustomed to processing Cornish Cross broilers and the like (bred for fast meat production, not flavor), and a few of our skinny chickens even fell through his killing cones (not having the massively huge breasts that the Cornish Crosses do). Because they were thinner, I was worried they might be tough or too small to be worth cooking. But the chicken fed eight people with leftovers, and it wasn’t tough in the least. Heritage breed chickens (like our Buff Orpingtons) are completely worth the extra time and effort.
Oh, and I also got 2-3 cups of nice gelatinous chicken stock out of the bottom of the crockpot, in addition to about 4 tbsp. of chicken fat for cooking. And I’m brewing a fresh batch of chicken stock today with the carcass (in addition to another old stewing hen carcass I had frozen a while back, and her feet). Chicken feet are supposed to make the best stock, so I’m excited to see how it turns out.
Yum! With the exception of the fact that my chicken came from the grocery store, this is how I cook mine too…except no water, I add the juice of a lemon and it still makes tons of stock, but I bet you get more by adding the water. I hope we can come see your farm some day, very cool to read about all the good eating you’re doing!
we’d love to have you out here, for many reasons!
Oh, how exciting! Are you going to have help again the next time or are you planning to do it solo? Are you buying all that equipment? We plan to process chickens someday and I’d like to learn how it’s done. It was nice getting a glimpse.
I’m all for the heritage breeds, too. I’m thinking of keeping buckeyes. We’ll see.
Congrats on the tasty chicken!
we’re not sure if we’ll go solo next time. eventually, the goal is to process it all ourselves. but i think we need to get the hang of it first. we’d be interested in purchasing some equipment and helping process others’ chickens, too, to make some extra money. if we get that far.
we considered buckeyes, too. and chanteclers and dominiques. all hardy dual purpose breeds. so far, we’ve been very happy with the buff orpingtons, but their winter survival will be the final test. i hear they do very well, so here’s hoping!
Was there a reason you decided against the Buckeyes or was it just an availability thing? Just curious.
Hope the next round goes just as well!
a few factors:
-availability
-weight (orpingtons, both hens and roos, are bigger, so more meat)
-rate of maturation (orpingtons mature a little faster)
-personality (orpingtons are super laid back)
i referenced this chart for help making my decision:
http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html
i’m sure both birds are great. just had to make a decision and stick with it at some point, lol.