View Full Version : chicken on the bone
Reading Ishbels post about Spatch c o c k e d chicken made me wonder. The latest trend is to get back to basics and cook chicken on the bone rather than boned with is more convenient as it is tastier. How do others feel about this. I confess to being squeamish about chicken on the bone and avoid it...do you feel strongly about it?
Interesting. I didn't know eating only boneless chicken was a trend. With rare exception I've always purchased, cooked and eaten it 'on the bone'. To do it otherwise would seem extravagent. Except for stirfries of course, but that meat is from breasts that I've boned myself.
Yes, it is touted a lot as a back to flavor cooking technique. I see it mentioned in reviews and cooking shows a lot. I just hate boning birds.
Being a vegetarian was easy for me since I never learned how to cook meat (actually, as noted in another post, I've never learned general cooking skills to my satisfaction--I'm still working on it), and I'm still pretty weak in that area, but I've learned to whack up a chicken carcass with some abandon, finally. I like to make bone broth from the carcass and other leftovers in the pressure cooker--tasty and nutritious. Practice makes perfect.
I just hate boning birds.
Same here - that's part of why I avoid doing it most of the time.
I don't want to make Big Bird cry.... http://www.simplelivingforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=195&d=1298098311
And I don't like to eat meat OFF the bone. It grosses me out. So, I won't eat a chicken leg or thigh. If I have to, if I'm given a cooked leg or thigh, I always take the meat off the bones first. I like to cut meat up entirely into bite size pieces before eating any meat.
I don't like eating meat off of the bone--except for drumsticks. Anything else (even BBQ ribs) grosses me out. So sometimes I buy split chicken breasts and cut off the skin and bone to make bonesless, skinless chicken breasts. If I cook a whole chicken or something like that, I just cut my portion off the bone after it is cooked. I just don't like gnawing on a bone. Ick! It doesn't both me at all when other people do, though.
loosechickens
2-27-11, 1:16pm
On the very few occasions when we buy meat, we buy the whole, organic chickens at Trader Joe's, roast it in our Sun Oven, cool a bit, remove the breast meat and set aside to freeze for stir fries, chicken salad and other chicken dishes, usually feast on a leg and thigh apiece (on the bone), sometimes only one piece each and save the other for lunch the next day as cold roast chicken, pick most of the remaining meat off the carcass and get a little baggie full of those scraps to use the next day in something, then make soup with the carcass.
The breasts are in the freezer for when, in a few weeks, we get the yen for meat again. (I usually cut each breast in half before I freeze, because 1/2 of one of the breasts is enough meat for the two of us in a dish.
We usually get 6-8 meals for two out of one of those whole chickens. I don't notice any difference between whether it's on the bone or off the bone. Only that those six to eight meals are probably spread out over several months from that chicken, which means that we only buy about four or five chickens in a year. We tend to use meat, any kind of meat, as a "condiment" as opposed to hunks of it just being eaten.....just personal preference.
Hmmm.....I wonder if not eating it on the bones pushes us further and further away from appreciating that it was a living being before it was killed for us? I'm just wondering.
I know when I eat a piece of beef and there's a big vessel in it, it really bothers me. Gag.
Bonte in meat always tastes better, which is why I've always disliked boneless chicken breasts--no flavor at all!
IshbelRobertson
2-27-11, 6:18pm
Have to say, that when you spatch c o ck a chicken it is easier to eat the meat than when you just roast a bird. It certainly ensures that the chicken remains moist, when cooked.
I think lots of people find bone-in meat slightly off-putting, but it certainly adds to the flavour of the finished meat.
Gingerella72
2-28-11, 11:15am
Hmmm.....I wonder if not eating it on the bones pushes us further and further away from appreciating that it was a living being before it was killed for us? I'm just wondering.
I know when I eat a piece of beef and there's a big vessel in it, it really bothers me. Gag.
Good point, and I think you have something there.
I too am squeamish when it comes to eating meat off the bone and won't touch a drumstick; even getting KFC I'll only eat the breast and then I pick all the meat off with a fork first. All the recipes I have for chicken call for boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I've been learning more about preparing and eating whole, real, food, and went to look for chicken breast with bone and with skin at the grocery store recently, and couldn't find any. All of it was boneless and skinless, except if you bought an entire bird, of course.
Books like Nourishing Traditions by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon are touting a return to traditional cooking methods and preparing chicken bone-in and making traditional bone broths is something they strongly advocate for the nutrient and good fat value that we're lacking in our current western diet of low-fat everything. We've become so far removed from the source of our food and look what its done to us; not only with chicken but with all food.
I'm working up the courage to learn how to cook a whole chicken and then to use the carcass for broth. I'm trying to reprogram my brain from being squeamish about meat (deboning, etc) to accepting it for what it is.....I'm not willing to give up meat in lieu of a vegetarian lifestyle so I'd better learn how to prepare it so that it gives me and my family the most nutritious value, which I think honors the bird more than just sticking to the "neat and tidy" parts so carefully presented to us in the shrink-wrapped packages in the store. I'm looking for a local source of grass fed meats, in the meantime I like the Harvestland brand of chicken at Walmart (aniti-biotic/growth hormone-free).
Good post Gingerella!
My DH always talks about how his mom and grandma (from Hungary) used every last piece of everything....even the chickens' feet! I might have a little trouble with that, but I think we could still use lots more of the animal than we're using. Even intestinal linings of pigs are used to put the sausage in. They still are, but some of them are made of other things now.
Oh......one point to bring up..........brands that say they are hormone-free are just doing what they are required to do by law. Chicken growers aren't allowed to use hormones. I'm not sure about the antibiotics.
treehugger
2-28-11, 12:01pm
I also wasn't aware of trends towards boneless or bone-in, but I only buy whole chickens because that is the most economical choice.
When I first learned how to cook (as an 18-y-o living on my own; I didn't really learn to cook at home), I was definitely a little squeamish about working with whole birds, but I got over that. I still can't carve as neatly as my husband, though (he's methodical; I'm in too much of a hurry), so if I am roasting whole (rather than cutting into pieces before cooking), then I give that job to him.
I agree with the point about trying not to get too far removed from the fact that the meat we are eating was actually a living animal at some point. I think about this a lot, and it bothers me on a personal level that I don't think I'd be able to kill an animal, even though I do eat them. The thought of breaking a chicken's neck or slitting a lambs throat makes me want to cry...but I eat chickens and lambs, so what does that say about me? Nothing good.
This may be getting into more philosophical ground than the OP intended, and I apologize for that.
Gingerella72
2-28-11, 2:44pm
I remember on Frontier House (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse/) when the families were going through training, one session was how to kill a chicken and prepare it for eating. The kids and teens were mortified that they were going to kill that cute, fluffy chicken they were all petting and holding, but one of the adults piped up, "Where do you think your Chicken McNuggets come from?" It was an emotional, yet valuable, learning experience for them all.
I think we've been programmed in our culture to view most animals as "pet-like" thanks to cartoons depicting smiling, talking animals, and thanks to the fact that very few of us ever see the killing process of the meat we eat.....whether its mass factory killing or Farmer Joe killing a chicken in the backyard for Sunday dinner. If an animal has to be killed though, I'd opt for the Farmer Joe way as I'm sure that chicken's life was probably more pleasant than its factory bretheren.
Back on topic though, I'm sure there are Youtube videos out there that show how to carve or debone full chickens.
I have a good friend with a flock of the most pampered pullets ever. She's no longer eating chicken. Downside of farm-fresh eggs, I guess. :laff:
CathyA: I'm 50 percent Hungarian and remember my grandmother's home-made chicken noodle soup with whole chicken feet in the pot! Thanks for the memory!
I used to prepare whole chickens. I can cut and section one but I don't like to. And I find I'm not very good at boning cooked whole chicken because I always get bits of tiny bone or gristle no matter how careful i try to be. But I can handle a knife and section and bone a raw chicken too. I just don't like to. I think I could do with an upgrade in knife to a much higher quality one, but I still like a sharp knife.
I realize I'm totally removed from the source. I think the only way to get back to that would be to raise and slaughter my own, including defeathering. Then you really understand your source. I have no problem using bones for stock and do it often. I just really don't like skin or bone on chicken. I like thighs. And thighs and breasts are easy to bone when cooked, but I've definitely fallen into a lazy pattern and pay the differnce. Plus I dislike legs in any form.
IshbelRobertson
3-3-11, 5:23pm
Whilst I am totally un-squeamish (is there such a word, I wonder?) about cooking a whole chicken, or spat c o ck ing said bird - I find myself totally unable to stuff a bird - that wet, doughy stuff emerging from the cavity of the bird just gives me (here's a Scottish word) the BOAK....
LOL Glo........were they just floating around in the pot?? Hopefully she cleaned the nails first. haha
I wish DH had kept more notes about his grandma. She came over from Hungary when she was about 18. He has so many wonderful memories of her cooking. The only thing he didn't like of her's was her lettuce soup. haha Then again......I'll bet it tastes pretty darned good if there's nothing else to eat!
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