Tastes Just Like Chicken--How to butcher a chicken in 20 minutes or less

Backwoods Home ^ | June, 2009

[SJackson]

Tastes Just Like Chicken

By Allen Easterly

So you want to raise some critters that taste just like chicken? There’s no better critter than the chicken itself. Chicken has become the most sought after meat in the marketplace. Raising your own birds can save you a few bucks at the grocery store. Even more satisfying is the great sense of accomplishment that comes with raising your own food from egg to dinner table and providing this healthy meal to your family.

Raising a small flock of chicken tenders is relatively inexpensive, their care is not complex, and they don’t take up much space. The birds are easy enough to rear that every member of the family can participate, from feeding to plucking to cooking, and of course eating. The birds you raise will taste better than store-bought, contain little or no chemicals or hormones, and live happier lives.

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How to butcher a chicken in 20 minutes or less... ...while leaving the carcass and feathers intact!

By Dr. Roger W. Grim, D.C.

When I was 12 years old Grandpa would let me help him pluck whole chickens after we had dipped them in scalding hot water in a washtub. That was the way he sold whole chickens to stores with his family business.

Figure 1. With a trash bag properly fitted around the chicken, clean up will be easy.

One day I asked Grandpa, “Isn’t there an easier way to dress out a chicken?” He showed me a method with no need to pluck feathers and no smelly stench from a wet chicken. It’s just a fast, easy way to put meat on the table.

[SJackson]

If you’d like to be on or off this Upper Midwest/outdoors/rural list please FR mail me. And ping me is you see articles of interest.

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I still can't believe these have to be excerpted, but articles at the source. Also Preparing for civil unrest , which I didn't post.

[Petronski]

And sacrifice the skin???

No way!

[Pinkbell]

I could never do it. If I had to butcher animals for meat myself, I’d become a vegetarian.

[SJackson]

Don’t believe Michelle Obama, growing vegetables isn’t all that easy either.

[SJackson]

It's gourmet now. Same as pork rinds.

Schmaltz and Gribenes
Epicurious | October 1999
Sharon Lebewohl and Rena Bulkin
The Second Ave Deli Cookbook

yield: Makes about 2 cups

This recipe uses the fat and skin from about 4 chickens. You can save it up in your freezer over the course of time. For even more flavorful... more ›

subscribe to Bon Appétit
Ingredients
4 cups chicken fat and skin, cut into 1/2-inch pieces or smaller
Kosher salt
Pinch of pepper
1 cup onion rings, about 1/8-inch thick

Preparation1. Wash fat and skin well in a colander, and pat dry. Place in a heavy skillet, and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper.

2. Cook, uncovered, over low heat (you can turn it up a bit once the fat has begun melting). When the fat starts to melt and get slightly brown, add onions (and garlic cloves if you like), and continue cooking until onions and cracklings are golden brown and crunchy.

3. When partially cooled, strain over a bowl to remove onions and cracklings, and refrigerate them in a covered glass jar. Poor schmaltz into another jar, cover, and refrigerate.

[Hot Tabasco]

Anyone familiar with a morning pheasant hunt prior to lunch knows you can clean a pheasant in about a minute or two, throw it on ice, go have lunch, relax for a while then go out again for the afternoon.......Repeat the process at the end of the day.

[RedStateRocker]

I wonder to what degree the ritual sacrifice in Jewish law relates to the benefit that people understand where their food comes from? I had a great chef once tell me, vis a vis cooking with the ‘nasty bits’ of pork “An intelligent animal died so you can eat; use everything and treat it with respect.
Maybe having to kill you meat every year or so would inculcate a respect for life and death in modern people.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Correct. But to do a pheasant, you fold out the legs and breast and leave the feather carcass in the field.

[Vaquero]

Been killing, dressing and buthering deer every year since ‘76. its just meat.

[Petronski]

Now you’re talkin!

[Cyber Liberty]

I bookmarked that. I hate chickens. Makes me happy every time I bite into one.

:^)

[SJackson]

Kashrut is a function of respect for animals, but a different topic unrelated to the thread. Having to kill or butcher an animal, or grow vegetables, I'd agree it inculcate[s] a respect for life and death in modern people, as well as engendering an appreciation of where food comes from.

[Redcitizen]

Butchered it, grilled it, ate it, burped it. Yum! =)

[paulycy]

20 minutes seems sorta optimistic.

[stefanbatory]

that entire online magazine looks like it is full of excellent resources...will need to bookmark it...

[politicket]

Ping for later reference

[IncPen]

ping

[TypeZoNegative]

The force is strong in this one....

[Rodamala]

I have been an avid reader of Backwoods Home Magazine for a number of years now. After wasting my time on "another online homesteading forum", I left and joined the forums at Backwoods Home. A great bunch of people there at BWH.

Glad to see cross-posting from BWH to FR!