A Chicken In Every Pot - Part II

We cooked our fresh chicken on Wednesday night and found it to be delicious, full of flavor, and a (mostly) welcome departure from the grocery store variety.  Here is a recap of the big event:

I chose to brine the chicken.  If I did it again with this type of chicken, I would have allowed it to brine overnight and then "dry out" during the day. 

I used Ina Garten's Lemon and Garlic Roast Chicken as my template, with a few adjustments.  (Do you ever watch Barefoot Contessa?  If so, then you know Jeffrey loves his chicken!  It makes us laugh whenever Ina makes chicken for Jeffrey, so I had to pay homage.  Plus, I trust her recipes.  Trust is very important to me when I use other people's recipes.  Well, trust is just important all the time, isn't it?)  Wow...that was a HUGE digression.

Back to the chicken...
The chicken had flavor.  It reminded us a little bit of turkey.  When you buy your typical boneless skinless chicken breast at the store, it is really a blank canvas for your recipe.  This bird had its own tremendous flavor that was simply enhanced with some butter, salt, and pepper.  The inside was stuffed with garlic, lemon, and thyme, but those flavors didn't really stand out to me.

I was most intrigued by the differences in anatomy between my bird and the typical one at the grocery store.  Simply stated, there was very little (if any) fat; the leg meat was very dark; and the breast meat was much smaller.

There was a fair bit of, shall we say, "wrestling" involved in the preparation of our bird.  This is not for the faint of heart and certainly not for people who wish to forget their dinner ever had a life.  I prefer not to work with whole birds just because it doesn't come naturally to me; I need to remind myself every time how to tie it, how to break it down, etc.  This was especially difficult with two little munchkins circling my feet the enitre time.

My favorite moment of the entire experience was when I was breaking down the chicken for us to eat.  As I twisted a leg to pop the joint, Andrew walked in and said, "Mommy, you made us a frog?"  I love it!  I wish you could see the scene; we are still laughing, days later.  I also love that he took it in stride and didn't think it was weird.  (I also love that he asked for me to add nutmeg to his cereal that same morning!)

Would I do it again?  Definitely!  The flavor was great, I learned a lot, and I will be able to improve my techniques next time.  Most importantly, I took comfort in knowing how the chicken was raised.  There was no question that I was feeding my family something wholesome. 

A Chicken In Every Pot - Part I

What do you really know about the food you eat?  Not much.  Sometimes I feel it's better that I don't know what happened to the cow or chicken or tomato before it graced my plate.  Some really terrible stuff is going on with the food we eat and ignorance really isn't bliss in this case.  I recommend you spend some time reading Michael Pollan.  Skinny Bitch was a gateway for me; it's so fun and informative that I return to it often.  Bottom line: I know that I can't ignore the food I feed my family.

Tonight will be different.  Tonight when I roast a chicken and lay it down in front of the people I love the most, I will know where that sweet bird came from.  The chicken lived a few miles from us.  It ran in a field (do chickens run?  I'm sure this one did.  And smiled too.), moved freely, and had a healthy life.  Until Tuesday. But I digress.

By now you know that I am loving this process of exploring the foods produced at our local TerraVita Farms.  So when they offered to deliver a fresh, never frozen, free-range chicken from their farm, I couldn't resist.  My only experience with chicken involved grocery stores, factory, pumped up breasts (not in a good way), and uncertain living conditions.  I had a lot of questions, and you might too.  For example:

Q. Will it be whole or in parts?  (Please say parts, please say parts, please say parts....)
A. It is whole.  That's ok; I've been working being brave anyway.

Q. Will there be bits and pieces? (I'm thinking about gizzards and other unmentionables.)
A. No.  *Sigh of relief*

A question I should have asked, but didn't: How long will the neck be?
Hmmm...wasn't ready to see that one.  At least the turkey people have the decency to detach it and shove it in the cavity.  Luckily, my husband knows me and loves me.  After I went to bed, he removed the chicken from the brine, "took care" of the neck, and returned the chicken to the refrigerator.  That's why I married that man.

Ok, so the chicken is resting comfortably in my refrigerator and I am getting ready to make a great dinner for my family...one that can make us all feel good.

Stay tuned for more about our feathered friend...