Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (101 page)

Use a sharp, thin knife to separate the vent from the tail, halfway around. Do so by inserting the knife between the vent and tail and working upward, one-quarter around until you reach the pointed pinbone at the side of the vent. Then work upward in the other direction toward the other pinbone, taking care not to cut into the intestine.

Insert your finger into the opening as a guide, and use your shears to continue cutting the skin all the way around the vent. Grasp the vent, and pull it out a little so it can’t drop into the cavity and release fecal matter inside.

About halfway between the vent opening and the breastbone, pinch the skin and insert your knife to make a horizontal cut about 3 inches (7.5 cm) across. The strip of skin between this cut and the vent opening is the skin bar that holds the legs in place during roasting.

A
midline cut
is a vertical opening running from the vent straight to the breastbone. This cut is used for small-size roasters, as well as for broiler/fryers. Roasters opened this way must be trussed with string or skewers to hold in stuffing or to keep the breast meat of an unstuffed bird from drying out.

OPENING THE ABDOMEN

Stretch the abdomen skin with one hand, and use a knife in the other hand to cut through the skin. Start at the keel, and slowly work the knife toward the vent, taking care not to cut deep enough to break into the intestine. When you reach the vent, insert your index finger into the opening and lift up on the intestine while continuing to cut around the vent beneath your finger.

Once the abdomen is properly opened, the next step is to remove the internal organs or viscera. Insert a hand into the opening and work it around the inside wall, as far as you can reach on both sides, to break the attaching membranes. When you come to the gizzard (it feels hard in comparison to other organs), cup your hand around the bundle of organs and pull gently.

Remove the internal organs in one bundle.

Although the idea is to bring out all the organs at once, if you miss any, you can always reach back in for them. When you gently pull them out, the bundle of organs may remain attached. For the moment, leave them that way.

If you’re cleaning a cockerel, be sure to remove the testicles — two soft, white, oval-shaped organs along the backbone. If you’re cleaning a pullet or hen, remove the mass of undeveloped eggs located in the same area.

In both cases, remove the lungs — pink, spongy organs pressing against the upper back. Some people enjoy the lungs in soup, provided the lungs were not contaminated by improper bleeding during killing. You can easily remove the lungs by inserting an index finger and lifting one and then the other with a scraping motion.

In the bundle of organs are three things you may want to save: the liver, the heart, and the gizzard. Collectively, they are known as giblets and may be cooked and eaten or used as the basis for a soup, stock, or gravy.

The liver from homegrown chickens is delicious, provided you don’t contaminate it by breaking the gallbladder — the small green sac nestled into one of its folds. You’ll know the bladder has broken if the liver becomes stained with green bile. When that happens — as it will from time to time — throw the liver out, as it will taste bitter.

Some people can remove the gallbladder by pinching it between their thumb and index finger. I’ve never been able to do that without squeezing out bile. Instead, I carefully insert a sharp knife tip under the connective tissue and slice upward, pressing the end of the bladder between my thumb and the blade to keep it from spilling.

Our favorite way to serve chicken livers is to fry them hot and fast and serve them with sweet onions over rice. When we have enough at one time, we make a tasty pâté.

Liver doesn’t keep well, so it is best served fresh. If you have too many livers at once, pack them into plastic freezer containers large enough to hold one meal each. Cover the liver with a piece of plastic wrap or waxed butcher paper, snap on the lid, and freeze.

The gizzards and hearts may be chopped or ground and added to gravy or stuffing or used to make pizza, spaghetti sauce, tacos, or chili. In various parts of the country, grilled, stewed, fried, or pickled gizzards are enjoyed as a snack. Gizzards and hearts freeze well for later use.

Remove the membrane surrounding the heart. Trim off the top, slit the heart halfway to open it out flat, and rinse it.

Cut away the gizzard where it attaches to the stomach and intestines. Cut into the large end, aiming toward the center until you come to the tough lining. In an old bird, you can separate the gizzard from the lining without cutting into the latter. If the lining is tender enough to tear easily, cut into it, rinse away the grit, and peel off the lining with your fingers.

When butchering whole chickens for roasting, some people wrap all the giblets from each bird in a little plastic bag and place it in the body cavity for later use in stuffing or gravy. These days a lot of people don’t bother to save the giblets, but if you clean many chickens, they can add up to a heap of good meat. Even when I don’t have enough to serve at the table, I cook up the gizzards and hearts for my appreciative cat.

CLEANING THE GIZZARD

With the giblets removed, break any attachments connecting the remaining organs. Drop this refuse into a large bucket or cardboard box lined with a sturdy plastic bag for disposal.

As soon as the birds are cleaned, rinse them thoroughly in running water and cool them quickly to remove remaining body heat and check bacterial growth. USDA guidelines call for chickens to be chilled to 40°F (4°C) or less within 4 hours of slaughter. The chickens may be water cooled or air cooled.

For water cooling, put them in a clean container full of ice water, and change the water or add ice as often as necessary until the birds are chilled down. Then remove them from the water, and either prop them on paper towels or hang them by a wing to drain for about 20 minutes before wrapping them. Chickens cooled by this method may absorb as much as 12 percent of their weight in water. Most of the water is absorbed by skin, which makes crisping the skin difficult — a disadvantage for people who enjoy eating crisply cooked skin.

Even though our family doesn’t eat the skin, we prefer air cooling, which is feasible because we have a spare refrigerator for the purpose, and by the time we get done cleaning and rinsing the chickens under running water most of their body heat has dissipated. We cover the chickens with clean cotton sheets, which allow air circulation while keeping the meat from drying out. Air chilling requires a cold-enough unit with sufficient space to spread out the chickens and hasten cooling to the requisite temperature.

Although you can’t avoid bacteria altogether — the little critters are everywhere — proper cooling lets you avoid a major source of contamination found in store-bought chicken meat. Most commercial birds are cooled in vats of water laden with rinsed-away fecal matter spilled from intestines that have been torn open by eviscerating machines. The meat soaks up the foul water and bacteria, which is why the USDA now suggests not rinsing store-bought chickens before cooking them — to avoid spreading bacteria in your kitchen — and advises cooking the meat to 165°F (75°C) — to destroy the soaked-up bacteria.

Broilers are cut into quarters or smaller pieces for frying, halved or quartered for grilling, or left whole for open-pit roasting. Roasters and capons are generally left whole. Old hens, being too tough to roast, are cut up to be stewed.

You may occasionally run across directions for eviscerating and cutting up a bird in one operation, but cutting up a chicken soon after it has been killed causes its muscles to bunch up, making them dense and tough. A chicken that is eviscerated and aged before being cut up will be more tender. Besides, chilled meat is easier to handle.

Some folks package all the parts of each chicken together. I prefer to sort the meatier pieces (breasts, thighs, and drumsticks) from the bonier pieces (back,
neck, and wings). Or if I’m cutting up enough chickens to make a batch of buffalo wings, I’ll wrap and label them separately. I package and freeze the meaty pieces for meals, then boil the bony parts and strip the meat for canning or making soup.

COMPONENTS OF A 4-LB (2 KG) BROILER/FRYER