Posts tagged ‘Animal Welfare’

July 10th, 2008

Chicken for the true gourmet.

I had chicken for the first time in my life this week.

I mean, I’ve had chicken before—many, many times. Chicken from plastic wrapped packages in the supermarket, chicken from farmer’s markets, chicken at fancy restaurants, chicken at fast food joints (well, that may have been “chicken.”) But this week, for the first time ever, I had chicken.

This chicken was not just chicken. This chicken made you savor the very word chicken, exaggerating it to the point of italics as you slowly chewed it’s flavorful meat.

This chicken was bought at Podere di’ Melo, a small farm run near my new apartment (I’m moving in August!) in West Amwell, New Jersey. Jim and I visited the farm, touring the idyllic landscape of stables, vegetable beds, the forest of trees for the pigs, peeking into the feed bins to assure ourselves that it was organic, almost tripping over the many happily pecking chickens that inhabited the entire area. We heard the farmers—a lovely married couple still working full-time jobs while running the farm—talk about their desires for the place, their view on the farm’s growth over the past two years, and about their love of food, cooking, and animals. Before I even bought a chicken, I already knew that it would be the chicken for me.

I’m leaving for vacation tomorrow, but I couldn’t go before letting you know about these chickens. Podere di’ Melo explains it best:

“Simpy put, these are one of the tastiest chickens you can find. Derived from the same genetic strain as the famous Label Rouge (Red Label) chickens of France, these birds are unlike anything you have tasted before. Unlike conventional (or even most organic) chicken, these are bred for flavor, not rapid weight gain (a feature that benefits the producer, not you!). They take longer to grow than commercial (and most organic) chickens and are active foragers (commercial breeds rarely move from the food tray). This results in an amazingly flavorful meat. This is the chicken for the true gourmet.“

I’ve had organic chicken before. I’ve had “free-range.” But I’ve never had chicken. And once you’ve had chicken, you’re a convert for life.

Herb Roast Chicken

excerpted from The River Cottage Meat Book (copy and pasted from Married… with Dinner.)

1 small but plump roasting chicken weighing about 3 to 4 pounds
7 tablespoons soft butter
generous handfuls of fresh herbs, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/2 glass of white wine
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Take off any string or elastic trussing from the chicken, place the bird in a roasting pan, and spread out its legs from the body. Enlarge the opening of the cavity with your fingers, so hot air can circulate inside the bird. It will cook quicker like that.

Put the butter in a bowl, throw in the roughly chopped herbs and the garlic, and season well with salt and pepper. Mix together with your fingers, then spear all over the chicken, inside and out. (Note from Anita: I also gently loosen the skin and spread some butter directly onto the meat. Yum. Note from Robin: I didn’t do that, but you definitely should!)

Place in the center of a hot oven (400F) and leave for 20 minutes (phase 1). Then baste the chicken [with the drippings], turn the oven down to 350F, pour the wine into the pan (not over the bird), and roast the bird for another 30 to 40 minutes (phase 2), depending on its size. Open the oven door, turn the oven off, and leave the bird for 15 to 20 minutes (phase 3). This is usually enough time to roast a small chicken through without burning the skin (the reason I prefer small chickens for roasting.) For a bigger bird, you will have to make the necessary adjustments, adding a few minutes to each phase. You may also wish to protect the bird’s skin with buttered foil for, say, the first 20 minutes of phase 2. A good test for doneness is to pierce that part of the bird where the thigh joins the breast; the juices released should run clear.

Forget about gravy. Carve the bird in the pan, as coarsely and crudely as you like (no wafer-thin breast slices, please), letting the pieces fall into the buttery pan juices and letting the fresh juices from carving mingle with the rest. Then take the pan to the table and pass it round your family or guests in the pecking order of your choosing, so they can pull out the bits they fancy. Pass it round a second time, to help redress grievances and encourage the further and fairer distribution of juices.

Accompaniments? Roast potatoes would be de trop. A green vegetable would probably go unnoticed. Some good bread to mop up the juices will be appreciated, while a leafy salad, produced only after your guests have demolished the chicken, might assuage a few guilty consciences.

The discover of the roasting pan, a day or so later in a cool larder, is a joy you may not wish to share. Plundered the jellied juices, congealed bits of skin, and crusty meat tatters that cling to the carcass before you quietly make the rest, along with the giblets, into stock.

*I’ll be in East Hampton until next week, so I won’t be responding to your comments. I’ll try to get to all of you as soon as I return. See you then!

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September 28th, 2007

Just Let Me Freakin' Eat You, You Stupid Quail! Porcini-Crusted Quail and White Mushroom Sauce

There were many new and, er, surprising things about my dinner last night. See, I’ve never cooked a whole turkey, I have no idea how to cut off a chicken’s neck, and my dinners don’t usually involve feathers. Ok, no dinner—in my entire life before last night—has ever involved feathers.

I bought freezer packed quail from the farmer’s market last Saturday, thinking that they would be all prepared—just requiring me to take out of the package and cook. Now, maybe if I were a seasoned cook, I would have been expecting the quail’s neck to be still on; I wouldn’t have gotten squimish about the amount of blood pouring out of the thing, and the feathers that were still sporadically stuck to the quail wouldn’t phase me. But, alas, I am not a seasoned cook, and this thing freaked me out.

I pretended not to care about the little baby bones of this poor animal. I screeched at Jim to look up on the internet what the hell I should do about the neck (nothing but cook it, it turns out), and when he laughed at me for looking faint, I argued that I was fine, I’d cook anything man, heck, I’ll start killin’ my meats if that’ll prove how tough I am. Yeah. Right on. Throughout these stout-hearted declarations, however, I was silently whispering my apologies to the quail.

I’d never have taken myself as someone to get persnickety over cooking an animal, and I did get over my guilt quick enough (puppetering my porcini encrusted quails to do the can-can), but the memory of this dinner will remain as quite an experience. Pulling off the few feathers that adhered to the quail was a brutal reminder of how animal, how alive, my dinner once was. And while I stand by my belief that being a herbiovore and eating meat that is humanely treated and slaughtered is the best diet a person can have, I think it would benefit us all to think a little more about our food and the life it had before entering our bellies. Something like that can really prompt you to opt for cage-free products.

There are so many benefits of eating animals that have been raised cage-free and happy. The animals are usually healthier (animals in close capacity tend to get sicker) and haven’t been stuffed with antibiotics. The meat is more tender, juicier. The flavor is earthier, closer to what real poultry or meat should taste like. Game birds are special treats too, with darker meat than most chickens and a deeper flavor. The only problem with quail though, is its so freakin’ hard to eat! It’s size (tiny) prohibits you from making ripping cuts with a knife lest want shredded quail for dinner. And, being poor and grumpy about it, Jim and I don’t have any high quality knives that could slice the bird up smoothly. The recipe turned out to be delicious, but after all the excitement in cooking the bird, which took me much longer than it would if I hadn’t freaked out, I was too hungry to happily spend my time eating carefully. I ended up taking a few bites and giving the rest to Jim. I’m not sure I’ll make this recipe using quail again, though with chicken thighs, it may become a staple dinner.

Porcini-Crusted Quail and White Mushroom Sauce

This recipe was adapted from Cooking Light, October 07. They used chicken breast halves. If you can’t find, or don’t want, quail, I would suggest substituting boneless chicken thighs.

Oven Temp 425º

  • 1/2 cup dried porcini mushrooms
  • 4 whole quail
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
  • 2 minced shallots 1 garlic clove, minced
  • 3 cups sliced wild or cultivated mushrooms (about 1/2 pound)
  • 1/3 cup dry white wine
  • 1/2 cup chicken broth
  • 3 tablespoons sour cream
  • 1 tablespoon minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
  1. Place porcini mushrooms in a spice or coffee grinder; process until finely ground. Spread out onto a baking sheet or plate.
  2. Sprinkle quail with salt and pepper. Dredge in porcini mixture. Fry quail in skillet with 1 tsp of oil for 2-3 minutes per side, then transfer to an oven-proof dish. Roast quail in the oven for 10-15 minutes, or until legs are browned and quail is done.
  3. Heat remaining 1 tsp oil over medium heat. Add shallots and garlic to pan; cook 1 minute, stirring frequently. Add 3 cups mushrooms; cook 5 minutes or until liquid evaporates, stirring occasionally. Stir in wine, scraping pan to loosen browned bits. Increase heat to medium-high; cook 2 minutes or until liquid almost evaporates. Add broth to pan; simmer until liquid is reduced to 1/4 cup (about 5 minutes). Stir in sour cream; cook 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir in remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, remaining 1/8 teaspoon pepper, and parsley. Enjoy!
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