Pleasures of the flesh
Taranaki Daily News chief reporter Peter Bingham focuses this week on a once-happy chicken.
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Chooks are fascinating creatures. When they can walk, they are good for laying eggs, and when they can’t, they are good to eat.
But they have other uses, especially in the frozen form. Many years ago, in the infancy of oil exploration off Taranaki, a homesick American was arrested after breaking into a New Plymouth supermarket. When police found the intoxicated roughneck, he was bowling frozen chickens at a row of spaghetti tins arranged like a tenpin bowling grid. This is a true story.
But I digress. A frozen chook is more commonly viewed as a handy feed to have on standby should unexpected visitors land around teatime. But like most food, eating chicken fresh is much better.
Those sacrificial chooks slaughtered at Christmas time when we were kids tasted better than the mass product of today. That’s why TLC Meats boss Tony Varga insisted I try the latest addition to his chilled cabinet: Freedom Farms free- range chickens.
“These are the same guys that gave us free-range pork and that was popular. They are a bit pricier ($19.99), but there is value in the taste.”
To cook a chook by the book is the easy way out and there is no great secret to roasting one of these babies, anyway. The greatest danger is to go a feather too far and end up with dry, rubbery chicken, thank you very much.
My TLC chook was a No.14 – it said so on the packet. I have Brass Set no idea how big or small a No.1, is but a 14 was big enough to feed four.
I gave it a jolly good rubbing inside and out with garlic butter (makes the skin crispy) before filling it with stuffing made from Mum’s recipe (not the over-herbed sort you get with those takeaways). Three rashers of bacon wrapped around the outside were a final touch.
The oven was pre-heated to 180[Degree] and the chicken was placed breast-side up in a dish with all the juices from the bag and a smidgen of white wine for flavour. Forty minutes was enough and the 15 minutes left standing wrapped in tinfoil allowed the juices to settle.
This was perfect, and whether it was the imagination or the wine playing tricks, it did have a good healthy taste to it . . . just like the old days.
Other articles:
http://namewwe.allmyblog.com/130-party-time-in-the-city-and-yo.html
http://blog.eastday.com//jgyiokk/art/1106275.html
