Whole Chicken, Three Meals

Still no camera, but this is supposed to be so simple as to obviate any need for visual aids. A whole pasture-raised chicken really is a wonderful, nutritious, delicious basis for quite a few wholesome meals. Buying individual parts like chicken breasts or chicken thighs may be convenient, but is far more expensive overall. If you want good chicken meals at a good value, a whole chicken is the way to go.

Meal #1 Roast Chicken

You will need:

A chicken (plucked and processed)

A large, sharp knife

Salt, and other optional seasonings

A large pan or skillet plus an oven, or a grill

First, “Spatchcock” the defrosted chicken.

To do so, remove any innards that have been packed inside the cavity. Then place the chicken breast side down on a firm cutting board. Take your largest, sturdiest, heaviest, sharp knife and cut through the chicken back all along one side of the spine. Press the two halves down and pull apart so that the chicken flattens out. Take the knife and score along the center of the inside of the breast — the inside of the breastbone. You can cut all the way through to cut the chicken in half, or simply score the flesh in the center to make it easier to flatten the chicken out. Preparing the chicken in this way reduces cooking time and helps to create a more even cooking temperature throughout the chicken.

Cook the chicken. We almost always use a grill to save on dish cleanup, but if you like doing dishes you can cook the chicken in a heavy pan or skillet in the oven, in a dutch oven-type pan with lid on the stovetop, or even directly on the oven rack (with a pan underneath to catch the drips). First, season the chicken with your seasoning of choice, then place in your cooking apparatus so that the spatchcocked chicken is reasonably flat. It is better to start on a relatively high heat until you see the outside beginning to brown, and then turn down the heat if necessary to cook the chicken to temperature without burning the outside.

Don’t overcook. Use a probe thermometer to check doneness. (If you don’t need a probe thermometer to check doneness, you probably also don’t need to be reading a basic description of how to cook chicken.) Test it out and make sure it works: the probes can sometimes become mis-calibrated. The technology of a thermometer is simple, so expensive is not better. In order to instantly kill all potentially harmful bacteria in the chicken, you need to cook it to 165 degrees Fahrenheit. However, if you cook until the internal temperature of, say, the breast, is 165 and then remove the chicken from the fire, the heat from the outside of the chicken will continue to transfer inward over the next few minutes and your internal temperature will reach points well over 165. So remove the chicken well before it reaches the desired temperature, perhaps at 160. However, even this will overcook the meat. Read on!

Safe temperature vs. safe temperature. Pasteurization works to kill bacteria at very high temperatures essentially instantly, or at somewhat high temperatures held over a longer time. We don’t care if the harmful bacteria die right away or if they die after 10 minutes, so long as they aren’t there when we are eating the chicken. Cooking chicken to 145 degrees internal temperature for 9 or 10 minutes appears to be enough time to kill the harmful bacteria which would also be killed if you nuke the chicken to 165. So, remove the chicken from heat once it hits 145, keep it in a relatively sheltered, warm spot (you might want to cover it if outdoors) and let it rest for at least 10 minutes, checking with the thermometer that it stays at or above 145 for that amount of time. 145-50 degrees is a much better temperature to bring out the chicken flavor without drying it out.

Don’t worry too much if you overcook it. Be safe. Warning: if you don’t cook your chicken to 165 degrees, you do need to hold it at or above temperature for a sustained period (10 minutes at 145 degrees). That’s going to require some extra attention and measurement. We’ve frequently cooked our chickens to 190 because we are busy and can’t be bothered to constantly check the temperature, and while it’s not quite as good and parts are a bit chewy, it’s still fine and you can use it as an excuse to make some gravy.

Note: If you’re concerned about overcooking the chicken — that is, you don’t trust yourself to take it off the heat in time (perhaps you are trying to do this while juggling other tasks?), OR if you’re concerned about undercooking the chicken — that is, you read everything above about not cooking to too high a temperature, but you’re cooking for someone immune-compromised, or you don’t Trust The Science of how pasteurization works, or for some other reason you really want to turn the heat up to 11 on this bird, then try brining the chicken overnight. Boil a few cups of water with about a quarter to half cup each of salt and sugar and perhaps some aromatic herbs and spices, until the salt and sugar dissolve. Then add cold water (or ice) to cool and dilute the brine. Put the chicken in a pot and pour in enough brine to completely cover the chicken. You can also do this in a (clean) cooler, and then fill the cooler with enough ice that the chicken/brine stays at a safe 35 degrees F (ideal refrigerator temperature). A properly-brined chicken is a lot more forgiving of high heat, so you can let it go to 165 without worrying about drying it out. Just make sure to drain the chicken and pat it dry or you’ll get soggy skin, and remember that you’ve already added some seasoning with your brine, so you can probably ease up on any extra seasonings applied before cooking.

Meal #2 Chicken Quesadillas (or Chicken Tacos, or Chicken Salad, or Chicken Casserole, or Pizza Topping, or Puff Pastry Chicken Pies…)

Clean up the carcass — but don’t work too hard. Once you’ve had your meal and the chicken is cooled down, tear off any major pieces of meat left on the carcass. Don’t try to get every little piece from all those bones in the back, just take off any major pieces you didn’t eat. Chop these up and they can be lunch or dinner the next day. Our go-to is usually quesadillas, because they’re easy to make in a cast-iron skillet and we can hide vegetables inside. Also, reheating the chicken along with something wet (such as melted cheese) seems to help keep it from drying out as much.

Meal #3 Chicken soup (stock)

While this requires adding all the other ingredients of the soup or stew, you are getting the nutrition of chicken bone broth, and if you save your chicken bones and make a big pot of stock you will get multiple meals out of it.

Freeze the bones. It’s not worth making chicken stock out of just one chicken, so freeze the bones and any bits of meat left on them. Just chuck it in a freezer-safe container until you have enough to fill a pot. If you aren’t going to eat the chicken skin, freeze it along with the bones and it will help flavor your soup stock.

How to make bone broth. Start with roasted, cooked bones — these already are. Use enough water to cover the bones but not too much extra. Add a shot of some kind of acid — apple cider vinegar works. The vinegar can help to release nutrients from the bones. The chemical effect is likely minor, however, so skip the vinegar if you don’t have it. Let the pot sit for 10 minutes or so to let the acid do its work, then bring the pot up to a slow boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to a low, low simmer and cover the pot. Simmer it for as long as you can. Twenty-four hours would be great. You may need to add water periodically to make sure the bones remain covered.

Consider adding chicken feet. There’s no reason your chicken bone broth/stock needs to be gelatinous at room temperature. However, some of us like that and the collagen probably is good for you. It’s unlikely that there is enough collagen in a chicken carcass to produce that gelatinous feel, so the best way to produce that in your chicken bone broth is to add a few (properly cleaned) chicken feet to the pot. Chicken feet have a lot of collagen in them.

Season the broth if you want to. We generally do not pre-season soup stocks. When we defrost the stock later to use it, that’s when we’ll add whatever seasonings and flavors we want. For the same reason we don’t add vegetables or herbs. We do all that when we’re cooking the final dish. Of course, if you already know what you want your stock to taste like, go ahead and season it now.

There is meat on those bones. After your stock is done, or you’re bored waiting for it, pour it through a mesh strainer (or just ladle it out and don’t mind the bits) and put the stock into freezer-safe containers for storage. You’ll be left with the bones, which are likely crumbly and falling apart. Picking the meat out of those bones using your fingers is a somewhat tedious and messy task, but there is likely enough to make a nice addition to the stock and thus to whatever final dish you end up making with it.

What to make from half a hog (one example)

If you’re ordering a half hog from us or from another local family farmer and getting your meat custom cut by a local butcher, you may be wondering what to have the butcher make with all that pork. Here is one example. You could probably copy this and send it to the butcher if you like.

This is relatively simple; you could, of course, be a lot more creative in what you get, and you could keep a lot more of the fat and offal if you want to cook more of it. The amount of extra fat here will make perhaps around 6 pints of rendered lard; by all means keep more for rendering if you want more.

This example has a lot of cured bacon and ham but you will not get as much sausage. You’ll still get a few pounds of sausage though, from the trimmings, so you’ll need to decide what kind of sausage you want. Bulk (loose) breakfast or Italian sausage both tend to be pretty versatile in the kitchen; if you want something like bratwurst they’ll be delicious but butchers normally charge extra as putting sausage in casings is extra work. Worth it if you don’t mind the extra cost! If you want more sausage, two decent options are to grind the ham leg or grind the picnic shoulder. For some other ideas see this post.

Packaging: butcher paper works great. Some butchers will offer vacuum-sealed plastic for an extra cost. This makes it easier to see what you’re pulling out of the freezer, and it’s possible the vacuum seal will prevent freezer burn longer. Throwing a pork barbecue extravaganza for your friends seems like more fun though. Both paper and plastic are good options for freezer storage, so it depends on your preference.

Here is the custom cut example:

SHOULDER

Picnic shoulder roast, bone-in, trim as needed but keep it on the larger size around 6+ pounds if possible, for smoking.

Make a little shoulder bacon, 1 pound packages. Cut the rest of the Boston Butt into a smaller boneless roast or roasts, in the 3 pound range.

LOIN

Pull off the tenderloin and keep it whole. Take out the baby-back ribs as well and keep as a whole rack.

Make double-thickness boneless pork chops, 2 per package. Keep a good 3/4 inch or so of fat on the the chops.

Add the pork sirloin to the sausage grind.

BELLY

Spare ribs yes, whole rack.

Standard bacon, 1 pound packages.

HAM

Cure the ham and take some center-cut bone-in ham steaks, 3/4 inch thick, one per package.

Keep the butt and shank parts of the ham whole, so these are two smaller hams in the 3-pound range in addition to the center-cut ham steaks.

OTHER

Smoke the hocks.

Make some jowl bacon, 1 pound packages.

Package about 10 pounds of back fat and about 5 pounds of leaf lard.

Package any extra bones for soup stock. Yes to neck bones if available.

Split the feet for stock.

Package a couple pounds of pork skin, enough to make a batch of pork rinds but not go crazy.

Heart and liver, yes (if available). No to the rest of the offal.

CSA pickup and market dates 2020 (updated November 14)

Because our CSA pickups are at the houses of some of our subscribers, we don’t list the addresses publicly. If you are a CSA subscriber and need to know where to go to pick up, please call or email us.

Albany Farmers Market at 4th and Ellsworth, Saturdays 9am to 1pm

(The Albany market is also a CSA pickup option.)

We’ve had to cancel most of our farmers market attendance this summer due to a large number of pre-orders. We will only be attending the Albany Farmers Market and only on select dates. We’ll do our best to keep something on hand for sale at these markets, but we have extremely limited availability and may need to cancel additional dates.

Saturday, December 12

2021 TBA

SW Portland and SE Portland CSA Pickups (Noon-8pm)

Wednesday, December 9

2021 TBA

West Linn AND Newberg CSA Pickups (Noon-8pm)

Monday, December 14

2021 TBA

Pasture-Raised Poultry vs. "Free Range"

There is a difference

The United States Government says there is no difference between a chicken raised outdoors on pasture in the open air and moved daily to fresh forage, and a chicken raised in a giant warehouse with a door to the outside that is open sometimes.

This is clearly not true.

The American Pastured Poultry Producers Association is a trade network of farmers who share tips and ideas on how to better raise poultry on pasture. They produced a video briefly discussing the very real difference between Pasture-Raised poultry and other methods:

“Free Range” Chicken is Fake

“Free range” chicken sold in a big “organic” grocery store chain probably bears very little resemblance to what any of us would expect of a real free range chicken. Real free range chickens are pasture-raised.

Unless the giant corporate mega-farm moves the chickens frequently, the birds are not getting much of any benefit from ranging or foraging. All you have to do is imagine what a flock of chickens or ducks or other birds does in an enclosed space. The area will become covered in bird manure and the plants growing there will be pecked and scratched up. Also consider how far a chicken or pretty much any domestic animal ranges from wherever it is regularly fed every single day. How many animals do you think will leave the food trough to go wade through manure to find some distant forage-able area they don’t even know is there?

Now let’s imagine a hypothetical agribusiness chicken operation with a ventilated warehouse full of several thousand “free range” chickens provided “continuous access” to the outdoors. What does that “outdoors” look like, outside that chicken facility? Do you think there is anything really growing there? Is there a reason for the chickens to leave the warehouse where they are fed? What exactly are they doing or foraging for when they emerge into the urea-blasted moonscape out of the air-conditioned warehouse doors? (It’s air-conditioned because with that many birds in an enclosed box with only a few exits, the CO2 buildup would kill them all without a ventilation system. Pretending this is a bonus is the job of the marketing department.)

The only way to raise chickens that really do forage in fresh, healthy, natural pasture is to move the birds to new pasture on a regular basis. It simply can’t be done with birds raised inside a stationary ventilated giant warehouse with “access to the outdoors”, which is quite likely what is being advertised as “free range” chicken at your closest “organic” supermarket chain.

Don’t waste your money on overpriced fake “free range” chicken. Get the real deal. Pasture-raised at a farm near you.

Pork Shashlik (Skewers) with Pork Stew Meat

The acidic marinade is the key ingredient

This is a method, not a recipe. We’re grilling chunks of pork on skewers, preferably over charcoal. With our Anchor Ranch Farm pork, pieces like the (already cut up) Pork Stew Meat work well, but if you’re buying leaner pork from somewhere else you’ll want to cut chunks from some of the fattier portions such as the picnic shoulder.

One traditional and great-tasting marinade is made from finely-chopped (or food-processored) onion. You’ll want a large amount of onion, maybe half as much as you have pork. Alternatively, you could use some other flavorful vinegar such as apple cider vinegar and put some diced onion in it along with the meat. Add any other spices or flavorings you want to the marinade. Salt and pepper and garlic go well.

For the best taste, let your pork soak in the marinade overnight in the refrigerator.

Now grill

That’s pretty much it. Use a high heat (grilling, not barbecue). Put the meat on skewers so you can turn it easily to make sure the center is cooked without burning the sides. Do not put anything except meat on the skewers: if you want to grill vegetables put them on separate skewers, as they take a different amount of time to cook.

The overnight marinade in a flavorful acid is key. Marinading does not make meat more tender; that’s why you need a decent fat content in the meat. It will, however, add flavor and the acid/onion marinade holds up well to charcoal grilling..

You’ll want to eat this with something that can cut the acidity. Mayonnaise or some kind of aoli, maybe a tzatziki or yogurt sauce.

Slow cooking meat outdoors (barbecue/smoking without a smoker)

Cooking with Convection

We use a Pit Barrel Cooker. We don’t know them or have any kind of business relationship with them, it just works really well. Of course, if you have the time and materials, you could make a barrel cooker yourself.

Alternatively, you can set up a charcoal grill for indirect heat. The kettle-style grills are best for this,

but you can do it with pretty much any style of charcoal grill. That’s the way we did it for years. It takes a little more work and isn’t as easy and fool proof, but you can do it!

1. You’re going to want to use charcoal briquettes. It’s going to be very difficult (impossible) to set up a regular grill for barbecue/smoking while using lump charcoal.

2. The Snake/Ouroboros. Around the inside perimeter of the grill make a line of briquettes just touching each other. This is why you have to use briquettes, so they are uniform size. You’re going to light these in one spot and then let the flame slowly travel around the circle. With only a few coals lit at a time, you’ll get an approximation of constant, low heat.

3. Put a pan of water in the middle of the “snake”. This will act as a heat sink to further ensure a relatively constant heating temperature.

4. Put your meat on the cooking grill directly in the middle of your briquette snake. Ideally it won’t also be above your pan of water — the aerosolized drippings hitting the hot metal of your grill help provide flavor — but if you have to, it’s not the end of the world.

5. Adjust your vents so that the air (and thus smoke) flows across your meat. Remember hot air rises. If you just have a top and bottom vent, close up the top vent and barely prop open one side of the grill. Air will come up through the bottom vent, but the smoke will be unable to go out the top, so the smoke will surround your piece of meat until it finally leaks out the side of the grill. Keep in mind that air => fire so if your coals are burning too hot, close your intake vent (on the bottom) a bit more! (If your grill doesn’t have adjustable air vents you should throw it out.)

6. You can add flavor with wood chips. Soak chips of some suitable wood. such as a fruit wood, in water, then make a little foil boat and send your wood chips to Valhalla in the fiery blaze. This prevents them from burning up right away, so you get the benefit of the wood smoke longer. You’ll want to do this at the beginning of the cook, as that’s when the most smoke flavor will penetrate the meat. You can also smoke with flavors besides wood, such as tea or dried herbs.

7. Get a probe thermometer. For pulled pork you want to slowly bring the internal temperature of the roast to around 195 to 205 degrees F. Other kinds of meat require a different temperature.

8. “Barbecue” is slow cooking until the meat is pull-apart-tender. “Grilling” is for small pieces of meat on skewers, or fish, or vegetables. Grilling large cuts of meat just dries them out. Steakhouses never grill their meat. You should stop too.

Finishing in the oven is okay

Slow-barbecue-smoking a large piece of meat on a charcoal grill can pose a lot of problems, but as long as you keep the heat low and adjust the ventilation properly, none of these problems really matter. Do not let perfect become the enemy of the good. It’s possible that your coals will go out before the meat is done. Another frequent problem is “stall”: after a few hours the meat gets to within 20 or 30 degrees of being fall-apart-tender done, and then the temperature increase stalls (because thermodynamics). If you encounter these or any other problems, just remove the meat from the grill, wrap it in foil, and finish it in the oven. The first few hours are the most important, because that’s when most of your smoky barbecue flavor is able to penetrate the meat. Finishing it in the oven after a few hours smoking on the grill will be almost as good as keeping it in the smoker the whole time. The key is to not rush. Keep the heat low, in the range of 225F or so.

The Precautionary Principle with Application to GMOs

For those who enjoy a bit of doom and gloom statistics, here is a link to the white paper by Taleb, et. al. describing the statistical risk involved in widespread use of GMO foods. This is pretty much the reasoning we follow in choosing not to feed our animals GMO grain. It’s also why, although we tend to prefer heirloom varieties, we don’t think you’re a horrible person if you buy, say, GMO tomatoes or something like that.

This argument against GMO foods is not the standard anti-GMO argument that we often hear from sensational media outlets or self-interested manufacturers of non-GMO foods; for one thing, this argument is entirely indifferent to whether GMO foods are healthy or not. In addition, the paper makes it clear that a lot of the applications of “the precautionary principle” that we see raised in shock media are spurious. It’s an interesting read.

We made a couple videos a while back explaining why we don’t use GMO feed: