Rural/Farm Life
Related: About this forumInteresting Idea on Tenderizing Old Roosters and Hens
I butchered and processed many a chicken growing up on the farm, but this idea is a new one on me:
For several years after I began hunting, I recoiled at the idea of hanging game birds. The idea of hanging shot pheasants or partridges undrawn and in the feathers for days and days just did not seem terribly hygienic or sane to me. Old texts wax rhapsodic about the sublime flavor of high game, which usually means pheasants and usually means birds that have hung for more than a week. This, I decided, was madness.
I was wrong.
In the article's response section, here's the question and answer that got me thinking:
Question: I remember your first post on this subject and was intrigued. Im wondering if this might be used on older laying chickens when they are ready to be harvested after they stop laying? Seems to be the same principles,older bird that needs flavor and tenderizing.
Have you tried older domestic chickens?
Answer: Yes, Ive done it with old roosters, but not laying hens. Works just like a pheasant. I hung a 5-year-old rooster a week and it was wonderful still had to braise it, but the flavor was SUPER chickeny.
http://honest-food.net/2012/10/20/on-hanging-pheasants-2/
Okay, who's GAME (bad pun, sorry) to try this and report back to us chicken-keeping DU-ers???
Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)As a child I remember ducks hanging and being set with the other kids to pluck.
My hubby bow hunts. He guts in the field. I keep the meat cold in a cooler or the fridge for a week and it makes a huge
difference for boar and whitetail. No place to hang them in Fl. Too hot.
Tumbulu
(6,459 posts)I'll try it with the next batch of roosters and report.
Redlo Nosrep
(111 posts)I'm dying to know if the author knows what he's talking about or if what he considers a "chickeny" taste is too much for the rest of us!
I found that, when I posted this same article and thoughts on a couple of homesteading sites, the "ick" factor was too much for the Poultry sub-forum mods. The biggest gross-out for them was hanging the bird with its innards intact.
Weenies!
mopinko
(72,037 posts)the pic shows the heads, but can you decapitate them and hang by the feet? or would you need to bleed them to do this? or?
i am seriously planning to do this, much to my hubby's disgust. ok, well not much, but some. i do have a fridge with an external thermostat i can use, but i also buried 3 55 gallon drums for root cellars, and think one of them would work perfect also.
i have 2 roosters from this spring that i am enjoying for now, but know i will want to dispatch soon enough. i may keep one till spring for a clutch, but i may just collect some fertile eggs now and....
at any rate 2 is too many. they are starting to fight. when that gets ugly it is over.
it will be my first time eating one of my birds. i am determined to make it a delicious celebration.