Rubber Chicken

Round Two Stew - Part 2

After avoiding it for as long as possible, we decided to bite the bullet and get the dreaded Cull Day #2 over and done with.  We gathered the necessary tools, prepped our work space and talked through our plan to make sure that the actually culling process was as fast, efficient and painless as possible (for both the chickens and us).

Work Station

Think happy thoughts and for goodness sake - don't look at the axe!

The phase "running around like a chicken with it's head cut off" is a funny expression until you see it in action.  Both Ian and I actually find this to be the most disturbing part of the slaughter process.  After getting the axe, not only do a chicken's legs run wildly, but it's wings flap like crazy, it makes clucking sounds and it's eyes continue to blink.  It is simply awful.

We figured we could at least avoid headless running chickens by hanging the decapitated birds from the clothes line to bleed out.  They still flapped but it was (slightly) less horrible than the flapping, running headless combo that we would have otherwise had.

Halfway through the process, we stopped to take a breather and reflect on how far we have both come over the past five years.  Ian is so far removed from the suburban boy that he was when we first met and I have made significant strides towards being a responsible farmer instead of simply a pet collector.

After cleaning the birds, we ended up with a large bowl full of chicken breasts, thighs and legs.  By this point it looked just like the meat you buy in the grocery store except our pieces of meat were much smaller than store bought produce.  I had big plans for this meat - a delicious chicken cacciatore.  I still have vivid memories of how excellent farm fresh rooster meat was; I anticipated our fresh chicken feast all day long.

I put extra care into the cacciatore recipe using our homemade canned tomatoes and just the right amount of spice...well, I need not have wasted my time.  Apparently, there is a reason old wives' tales specify using farm chickens "for the pot".  That is another way of saying that the meat on these old birds is tougher than rubber!

"Rubber chicken" cacciatore: looks good, tastes terrible.

My cacciatore was terrible.  Not exaggerating at all, trying to eat the meat in it was like chewing on an elastic band.  It was absolutely horrible, not to mention completely inedible.

My meal was a new take on rubber chicken.

However, I was determined not to waste this meat.  I was on a mission - we were going to eat these hens somehow.  So, the inedible chicken cacciatore went into the stock pot and I boiled this disaster in chicken stock for eight hours after which I added veggies and more spices to create, you guessed it, Round Two Stew.  My stew was hardly a culinary masterpiece but it was a vast improvement over my previous try - this meal was at least edible.

If anyone has other ideas of how to cook up very tough red hen please let me know - I still have three more ziplock bags of meat in the deep freeze and I do not think I can sell Ian on another batch of Round Two Stew any time soon!