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thefourthvine) wrote2010-02-12 07:10 pm
thefourthvine) wrote2010-02-12 07:10 pm
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Chicken Help Requested!
Dear meat-cooking faction of my friends list,
I would like to make some chicken. I want it to be a mix of white and dark meat, something that I can easily convert into small pieces, and fairly tender (not dry, not very chewy). It does not need much of a sauce, because most of it will go into the freezer for Earthling Chicken Salad. (Chicken pieces + diced fresh tomatoes + olive oil + choice of flavoring.) Ideally, it should keep all the fat it came with.
What do I need to buy? (Keep in mind that I am buying this for Tiny Alice Waters, and thus should probably go for higher-quality chicken, if there is a variation in quality amongst chickens; also, for reasons of personal moral qualms, I am willing to pay more for more humanely-treated chicken, if that exists.) Where should I buy it? What do I need to do? How can I make chicken happen?
Please keep in mind that although I am a good home cook, I have never made meat. I was a vegetarian long before I learned to cook, so meat has always been a total blind spot in my kitchen vision, if that makes sense. If there is a ritual anointing that anyone would know to do? I don't know it. If there's some safe-handling thing that is so insanely obvious that no one ever mentions it? I won't do it unless you tell me to do it. You know those exercises you had to do in school where you had to pretend the teacher was an alien (generally not much of a feat of imagination, there) and explain to her how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Please pretend I am an alien, because I am. I have never visited Planet Meat before. I need a very thorough travel guide.
I have a crockpot, and if a crockpot can produce this kind of food, I would prefer to use it, since mine has three crocks and one can just become the Meat Crock. But if there is an easy, non-crockpot method for producing chicken, I would also enjoy hearing about it. (Please nothing that requires setting fires. I would prefer to emerge from this with all my parts basically intact.)
I would really appreciate your help. (And Tiny Alice Waters would, too.)
<3,
TFV
I would like to make some chicken. I want it to be a mix of white and dark meat, something that I can easily convert into small pieces, and fairly tender (not dry, not very chewy). It does not need much of a sauce, because most of it will go into the freezer for Earthling Chicken Salad. (Chicken pieces + diced fresh tomatoes + olive oil + choice of flavoring.) Ideally, it should keep all the fat it came with.
What do I need to buy? (Keep in mind that I am buying this for Tiny Alice Waters, and thus should probably go for higher-quality chicken, if there is a variation in quality amongst chickens; also, for reasons of personal moral qualms, I am willing to pay more for more humanely-treated chicken, if that exists.) Where should I buy it? What do I need to do? How can I make chicken happen?
Please keep in mind that although I am a good home cook, I have never made meat. I was a vegetarian long before I learned to cook, so meat has always been a total blind spot in my kitchen vision, if that makes sense. If there is a ritual anointing that anyone would know to do? I don't know it. If there's some safe-handling thing that is so insanely obvious that no one ever mentions it? I won't do it unless you tell me to do it. You know those exercises you had to do in school where you had to pretend the teacher was an alien (generally not much of a feat of imagination, there) and explain to her how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Please pretend I am an alien, because I am. I have never visited Planet Meat before. I need a very thorough travel guide.
I have a crockpot, and if a crockpot can produce this kind of food, I would prefer to use it, since mine has three crocks and one can just become the Meat Crock. But if there is an easy, non-crockpot method for producing chicken, I would also enjoy hearing about it. (Please nothing that requires setting fires. I would prefer to emerge from this with all my parts basically intact.)
I would really appreciate your help. (And Tiny Alice Waters would, too.)
<3,
TFV
Hello, hi, hello; lurker here
For a lot of the casseroles I make, I simmer a whole chicken in water (just enough to cover it) with a cut up onion, two cut up carrots, and all the celery leaves I've collected and frozen from random celery use--any aromatic vegetable bits can also be used--leeks, scallions, etc. For spices, a bay leaf or two plus some sage is fine, and a little salt, though a bouquet garni would not go amiss, if you have cheesecloth or are obsessively French. Since I do not have a crock-pot, I make it on the stove, but as long as you can get it to simmer, it will work.
Cook it for several hours (2-3) until it's falling off the bone when you prod it with a wooden spoon, or when you attempt to lift the chicken out of the pot it falls apart--this makes it easier to pull apart, more tender, and you can be absolutely sure it is totally cooked. You can also use a cut-up whole chicken (you can buy them both ways). The next part may not be acceptable, since it is not very divorced from the essential act of eating meat: you pull the meat off the bones by hand, which takes some practice to do quickly, but it's clear by touch what is meat and what is fat/other tissue (not slimy vs. slimy). I usually let the pieces cool in a baking pan for 15 minutes or so, so that I don't burn my fingers. I usually tear the meat in strips instead of cutting it, since I find that there's more surface area and ability to absorb/hold sauce that way. Though you could certainly use a knife if you want more distance.
Since the fat renders out of the skin and the meat cooks in it, it should keep a lot of its fat--whatever chicken pieces you decide to use, make sure they are skin-on. If you do it this way, you have also magically made fantastic, fatty, delicious and salt-controlled broth, which can be canned, frozen or used immediately. For particularly good broth, use bone-in chicken and throw all the non-meat bits back in the broth and simmer them for another several hours--this gets all the good stuff out of the bones, though some sources want you to do arcane things with baking the bones first. The carrots are usually delicious, but the celery bits and onions are typically a lost cause. I usually take the broth and freeze it or use it immediately in the casserole-of-the-hour's sauce.
If you do use a whole chicken, make sure you take out the gizzard bag from the empty cavity before cooking it. Whole Foods (or any grocery store in a fancy part of town, really, but Whole Foods does their research better, I've heard) will have organic chickens, and possibly organic, free range, bug-and-grass seed fed chickens. If you were in Atlanta, I could give you one of mine from the backyard, but Whole Foods will do, I think.