Flight of Chickens - Pictures

Uncooked chickens

The Sasso chicken, colored broiler, rooster



supermarket chicken, free range Cornish X






silkie, Cornish game hen

Silkie - cooked

Supermarket chicken (fryer) - cooked

Cornish game hen

Free range Cornish X

Free range sasso chicken

Flight of Chickens - Data

Flight of Chicken: A Tasting

5/26/2013	Commercial			Free Range (Goffles)
	Control	Cornish Game Hen	Silkie Chicken
	Cornish X	(Young chicken)		Cornish X	Sasso Chicken
	A	B	C	D	E
Raw	Blue band on leg			White band on wing
Weight	4lb 6oz	1lb 13oz	1lb 9oz	3lb 13.25oz	5lb 4.75oz
CV	American Choice (A&P brand) fryer, up to 3% retained water. $1.69/lb	Tyson brand  less than 4% retained water, frozen & thawed $2.49/lb	V&Ts, frozen & thawed $8.99 each	Killed Friday night, $2.19/lb, hen	Killed Friday night, $2.49/lb, rooster
Appearance	flabby skin, yellowish skin tone (fed marigolds?) lots of fat, overall shape round	pinkish white, a lot of fat, overall shape round	blackish blue skin, a little grayish yellow fat, keelbone prominent (like Anne's retired layers?), very angular	very white skin, some fat, crisp skin, the skin on the edge of the wing was very defined , overall shape round	bright yellow skin, very fat, fat around the gizzard, overall shape more oblong, not as much breast meat
Cooked	About 20 minutes/lb
Cooking Time (h:m)	1:25	0:40	0:30	1:10	2:00
	30 min. after E	30 min. after D	10 min. after B	15 min. after A
Appearance	Falling apart, pale yellow, bone pulled out	falling apart, whitish	not falling apart, grey, bone difficult to eat, very little meat	falling apart, very white, pinkish	mostly falling apart, bone pulled out, meat is yellow
Weight	NA (forgot to re-weigh)
Broth	Blue band on pot handle	Green band on pot handle		White band on pot handle	Yellow band on pot handle
Appearance of Broth	slightly yellow, obvious fat on top, clear	pale, little fat on top, gray	pale, little fat, clear	pale, little fat, clear	lots of fat, yellow
Taste of broth	chicken, salty, watery, oily, slight chicken flavor	little flavor, watery	chicken flavor, not from oil, watery less oil, complex flavor	good, vegetable notes, richer chicken taste, good chicken flavor	most flavor, rich chicken taste, VG chicken flavor, more fat
Taste
White Meat	dry, mild/bland, full taste on upper palate, lingering, shark meat texture, like chicken, less flavor, slight metallic	mild, dry, more side of mouth flavor, dry flaky, grassy, greasy, tastes like commercial chicken breast, bland, light chicken	tasty, richer chicken taste, gamier, nutty, moist, chicken flavor mild, strong chicken flavor	good chicken taste, slight lemony notes?, fresh, greasy, papery, dry, strong, metallic, best flavor	fresh nice taste, roasted chicken taste, burst of flavor, white bread, mild chicken flavor, not as strong flavor
Dark Meat	mild, sharper metallic taste on upper palate, tastes like alligator, more flavor, moist, chicken moist	mild a bit more taste, a little gamey, slippery texture, pepperish - mushroom,  nutty, extremely mild, strong chicken	less taste than the white, stronger tasting, nice, tangy, papery, oily, not particularly flavorful, fatty, strong chicken	chicken, meat near bone yummy, gristlely, stringy like tendons, slight olive taste, tastes like domestic chicken, strong chicken, best flavor	chicken, gamy, taste on side back of tongue, mild, flavorful
Texture
White Meat	Dry, firm/powdery, oily, denser	firm, dry, dense, chewy, less stringy than dark, rubbery, mushy	chewy, overcooked codfish texture, firm	moist, tender, chewier meatier than control, dry, thick, chewy, tends to stick to the mouth, firm	tender/musky, less dry than the other, dry, tough
Dark Meat	moister, not juicy, mushy, softer texture	moist, firm, soft, somewhat stringy, moist	chewy, rubbery, stringy, tougher, mottled color, oily, softer	moist, firm, slightly chewy, dense like thin steak, strong firm, smooth	firm, moist, chewy, soft, a bit stringy, dry, tough
Bones	Friable, somewhat brittle	friable, soft	strong, thinner bone than the others, strong, brittle	strong	really strong, hard to chop through.

These are the combined observations of 7 tasters.
I did the best I could deciphering the handwriting.  If I couldn't read it or guess, I left it out. This is also just the raw data. More information and analysis to follow.  

Lemon Curd Tarts with Strawberry Rhubarb Topping

Make strawberry-rhubarb compot.
1 large bunch of rhubarb peeled and chopped into 1/2” to 1” chunks
1 1/2 quarts strawberries hulled and chopped.
Juice of 1 lemon
Lemon zest (optional)
water to start simmering without burning to fruit
sugar to taste
Place strawberries and rhubarb in a pot.
Turn burner to medium heat
Add lemon juice
Add water, just enough to keep the fruit from burning
Stir occasionally to keep the mixture from burning.
Once it starts to boil, reduce heat and allow to simmer until everything is soft.
Mash lumpy bits up so everything is the same mushy texture.
Let simmer to thicken to desired consistency.
Add sugar to taste.  This will vary depending on how sweet your strawberries are.
Refrigerate or freeze until ready to use.

Make Lemon curd using this recipe.
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/lemon-curd-2/
Refrigerate until ready to use

Make short bread dough until using this recipe
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/shortbread-recipe
I didn’t use water, because I splashed in too much vanilla extract. (It was yummy.)
Let chill in fridge for about an hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Using tart tins about the size of the mini cupcakes.
Place a quail egg sized piece of dough into each tin.
Using a tart tamper or your fingers line the tin with the dough.
Prick the bottoms with a fork.
Bake for about 10 minutes.
Take the tarts out of the oven and fill about 1/2 full with the lemon curd about 1/4 of a tablespoon.
You may want to move the tarts around the baking sheets for more even cooking.
Bake for another 10minutes.
take out of the oven and top with compot.
bake for another 10minutes or until the crust is golden brown.
Let cool until cool enough to handle and take out the tarts and place them in the mini cupcake papers.
Serve.
If you don’t add the fruit topping you can do the same thing.  Just bake it for longer once the lemon curd is added.
1 lemon curd and 1 shortbread recipe will make a little more than 48 mini tarts.

Chicken Tasting - Some More Sources

As I have been searching for a local source for "period" chickens as well as the difference between heritage and modern breeds I decided to list some of the additional information I have dug up.

Potential source for a period breed:
http://turtlebackfarm.com/?page_id=645

I ordered chickens from here today.
http://www.gofflepoultry.com/
They have 2 types of chickens a white one and a red one.  The white one is the commercial Cornish Cross.  The red one they call a Sasso chicken, which Goffles says has a distinctly different taste.  Some additional digging around on the internet produced a French company Sasso that essentially produces designer chickens for free range meat and egg production.  Sasso chickens appear to be the puggles and cockapoos of the chicken world.  Anyway, here is their website and their breeding methodology, I'm not sure which type Goffles raises or even if they order fertilized eggs or do their own breeding on site.  http://www.sasso.fr/index.php?produit=home&lg=en

Commercial processing of chickens seem to involve injecting the chickens with a saline solution to produce juicer and plumper chickens especially the breast meat.  My take on it is that everything tastes like chicken except chicken?  Here are some articles I've found from more "reputable" sources regarding plumping.  Lookie chickens can have breast enhancements too!
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/04/opinion/la-ed-chicken4-2010jan04
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/07/22/138606851/got-enhanced-meat-usda-rule-may-make-it-easier-to-tell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumping

Here is an article from the American Livestock Breed Conservancy about cooking heritage breeds.
http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/cookingwheritagechicken.pdf  It also discusses some of the differences between heritage breeds and modern chickens.

Their main website also has good information about heritage breeds in general and a breeder directory.
http://www.albc-usa.org/

I must say that while my research into sheep fleeces has helped me in looking for period breed chickens, I must say that I currently know more about chickens than I ever wanted too and yet there are more unanswered questions.

Among them are:
Even if I get my hands on a heritage breed chicken, I have no way of telling if or how this chicken has been "improved."
Many of the heritage breeds are landrace breeds.  This means that due to the genetic diversity within the population there is no way to determine how much the breed will have changed once they are transplant away from their "native" environment.

Anyway, this is a start, with more research I can probably track down some heritage chickens.  So our next "tasting" may be more period. And if nothing else, I hope that my questions and requests for certain heritage breeds will show that there is a retail interest in these types of chickens and perhaps encourage people to raise them and thereby help save some of these breeds.  Ironic isn't it?  I want to eat these chickens and yet because of this I'm creating a demand to produce more.