SLOW
COOKING
| "There is something nurturing
about having a pot of simple, clean and healthy food waiting
for you at the end of a busy day." |
Clean food, simple ingredients cooked with integrity. This is a way of cooking
I learned while living in France several years. I feel good about feeding my
family this kind of food. It takes planning while you are running around chauffering
the kids or returning from a business trip. But, once you get the system down,
it can provide you with wonderful food.
CHICKENS
This is a wonderful and easy way for me to cook one of our Colored Range chickens.
I try and use the largest bird that I can fit into the crockpot so that we
can have leftovers.
- Defrost for TWO days to let the muscles relax. (Many "old timers" tell me that this was common wisdom on ranches and old farmsteads.)
-
SLOW COOKING in a Crock Pot or on Stovetop with a large cast iron pot or similar vessel
Place the bird in the pot with seasonings and some spring water and organic onions. Let it cook all day in the crock pot or cook for several hours slowly on the stove top.
- Results: "You will have a remarkably flavorful bird to use for dinner."
You will also have a fantastic stock to use for soup. (We add some meat and some couscous or rice.)
Leftover meat can be made into anything. We like to use it for curried chicken salad the next day.
-
ROAST CHICKEN
Place bird in an open pan and season to taste. Add two cans of organic chicken stock. Cook at 350 degrees for several hours until bird is done. Add more water if necessary. I put in veggies as well and rice towards the end so that they can cook in the chicken stock.
We hope you truly enjoy these chickens which are grown with love and much care! Their flavor is fantastic and the texture is more firm than many Americans are used to. The consistency is more similar to our Heritage Turkeys. Anne
This is an except from:
The
Ethical Gourmet by Jay Weinstein
It was worth it, after all, to support a system that allowed
the animals to live in the open air, see the light of
day, walk on the soft ground, and consume food unadulterated
by chemicals and unnecessary medicines. That's when I
opened my mind to discover that the free-range, organic
bird yielded superior meat.
The first thing to learn is that conventional and free-range
meats are not the same product with different prices.
They're different meats. The next logical step is to
treat them differently. My favorite part of a roast
chicken had always been the thigh. It was juicier, fattier,
and deeper in flavor than the plainer breast, which
I often found dry. Thighs had bones that you could pick
up with your hands (finger food is a favorite among
cooks). Bones also impart flavor as the meat cooks,
so pieces with central bones have more taste. And, since
every part of a conventional chicken is usually tender
enough to cut with the side of a fork, thigh meat was
the most texturally pleasing and flavorful part to me.
When I'd tasted that first free-range chicken, I'd automatically
gone for my favorite thigh portion. As other guests
waxed poetic about the juiciness and cleanness of flavor,
I felt I was looking at the emperor's new clothes, and
this chicken was naked. This time around, I sliced the
breast It was like slicing open a capon. Juice ran down
the handle of my knife as I cut.
I learned that free-range chickens are much more like
wild birds, in that their weight bearing muscles, their
legs, actually bear their weight. By contrast, conventional
chickens' feet are in such discomfort, the birds spend
most of their lives sitting down. Naturally, less active
muscles make much softer meat. The plus side is that
there's an intensity of flavor in a worked chicken thigh
that far exceeds what a flaccid thigh can attain. One
thigh can impart as much flavor as a whole conventional
bird to a batch of chicken soup. Chicken and dumplings
take on a depth of flavor that hasn't been widely tasted
since the dish was invented. And the breast of free
range chicken is a special, sensual flavor and texture
experience. That's all assuming you throw out the old
chicken playbook, and cook with a new set of rules.
Free-range meat is lean, and that means that slower
cooking times yield better results. Slow and low roasting
brings about a sublime roasted free-range chicken, where
it would make a conventional one soggy and overdone.
Searing becomes more important when lower temperatures
will give less browning. Learning to cook free range
is like learning to cook chicken all over again. The
same is true of other free-range, pasture-raised, and
grass-fed meats.
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How to Make Stock from Chicken Feet
by Elise
Bauer, Simply Recipes, Inc.
Ingredients
2 pounds of chicken feet
2 large carrots, cut in half
1 onion, cut into wedges
2 celery ribs, cut in half
1 bunch of fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
10 peppercorns
Method
1. Bring 2 quarts of water
to a boil. Put the chicken feet into a large stock pot
and cover with boiling water. Boil for 5 minutes. Use
a large metal spoon to skim and discard the scum that
rises to the surface.
2. Drain the chicken feet completely.
Rinse with cold water so that the feet are cool enough
to handle. Using a sharp knife, chop off the tips of
the claws and discard. They should cut easily if you
cut them through the joint. If any rough patches of
claw pad remain, cut them away with a pairing knife.
3. Place chicken feet in a clean
large stockpot. Fill with cold water to cover the feet
by an inch. Add carrots, onions, celery, thyme, bay
leaf, and peppercorns. Bring to a simmer, immediately
reduce the temperature to low. Partially cover, leave
about a half inch crack or so, and keep the stock cooking
at a bare simmer, for 4 hours. Occasionally skim any
foam that may come to the surface. Uncover, increase
the heat slightly to maintain a low simmer with the
pot now uncovered. Continue to cook for an hour or two.
At this point you are reducing the stock so that it
is easier to store. Strain the stock through several
layers of cheesecloth or a fine mesh strainer (ideally
both) into a pot. Pour into quart-sized jars. Let cool
for an hour or so before storing in the refrigerator.
When your stock has cooled, it should firm up nicely
into a gel.
Makes approximately 2 quarts.
BEEF
POT ROASTS
Holding Ranch customers Karly and Ethan
get all their meat from the Holding Ranch booth at the
San Mateo Farmers' Market. Ethan made a video of their
cooking of a braised crossrib
roast. This is a cheap cut of meat that, cooked
right, is absolutely delicious. It's grass fed, pastured,
humanely raised, and worth every penny.
See their video on YouTube
Beef
Cooking Instructions.
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