Thank you for purchasing one of my chicken.
You are one of the reasons I'm excited about farming.
It is great to know that there are people who genuinely care about where their food comes from and are therefore supporting small farmers like myself.
How to cook a "Gustav's Chicken"?
There is a bit of a difference between cooking store-bought conventional chickens and pasture-raised organic chickens.
Conventional broilers live short and relatively unhealthy life. The average lifespan of a mass-produced broiler is 42 days and their one and only goal is to grow big quickly and effectively. This means that they don't have much space to move around or have outdoor access.
Organic broilers eat only organic food and have better living conditions starting with more space to move around and outdoor access. My approach is to be "more than organic", this means that I make sure that I don't just meet the organic standards but aim to do more.
How? For me, this means making sure that the chickens want to be outside and explore the nearby trees and bushes. Their instinctual behavior is scratching the ground in search of bugs and worms, which makes them happy and stress-free. Chickens actually prefer spending time around trees and bushes because they know that this will protect them from aerial predators and it looks like the kind of environment that their great ancestors lived in (jungle fowl).
This means that my chickens have actually run around searching for bugs and therefore have more developed muscles compared to conventional chickens.
Therefore the cooking part needs a bit of a different approach.
COOKING
1. Thawing
It is important to give the chicken enough time to thaw. For example, if you want to have chicken dinner tomorrow then make sure to take the chicken out of the deep freeze at least 24h before. Put the chicken on a bigger plate and then put the chicken on a lower shelf in your fridge (just in case it starts dripping from the plate).
24 hours of thawing time is enough for 2.2 kg chicken. If your chicken is bigger than 2.2 kg then add more hours for thawing.
* If you don't have 24 hours for thawing then Google for faster thawing tips.
2. Brining
The secret to tender chicken meat is brining. There are two ways to do it:
This is the part where I'd let you decide how you like your chicken but here are some tips:
I've cooked chicken inside a cooking bag in an oven, or in a pressure cooker. There are many ways but I think that cooking chicken in an oven is accessible to most.
Oven cooking time at 175 Celcius is 45 minutes for every kg of chicken (20 minutes for every 0.45 kg). I suggest first heating the oven to 230 Celcius for the first 10-15 minutes of cooking to brown the skin and then bringing the heat back to 175 Celsius for the rest of the cooking time. When the chicken is ready then let it rest outside the oven for at least 15 minutes before serving.
* don't forget to add baking paper under the chicken
Extra tip:
If you have any leftovers then put then you can make some chicken soup. Put the leftovers in a big pot, add water and boil them with low heat for a couple of hours. Then use the stock to make some delicious chicken soup.
I'm still testing different ways to cook pastured broilers. You can google different pastured broiler or organic broiler recipes and test for yourself.
Please share any tips and feedback with me :)
I hope your chicken will be amazing.
You are one of the reasons I'm excited about farming.
It is great to know that there are people who genuinely care about where their food comes from and are therefore supporting small farmers like myself.
How to cook a "Gustav's Chicken"?
There is a bit of a difference between cooking store-bought conventional chickens and pasture-raised organic chickens.
Conventional broilers live short and relatively unhealthy life. The average lifespan of a mass-produced broiler is 42 days and their one and only goal is to grow big quickly and effectively. This means that they don't have much space to move around or have outdoor access.
Organic broilers eat only organic food and have better living conditions starting with more space to move around and outdoor access. My approach is to be "more than organic", this means that I make sure that I don't just meet the organic standards but aim to do more.
How? For me, this means making sure that the chickens want to be outside and explore the nearby trees and bushes. Their instinctual behavior is scratching the ground in search of bugs and worms, which makes them happy and stress-free. Chickens actually prefer spending time around trees and bushes because they know that this will protect them from aerial predators and it looks like the kind of environment that their great ancestors lived in (jungle fowl).
This means that my chickens have actually run around searching for bugs and therefore have more developed muscles compared to conventional chickens.
Therefore the cooking part needs a bit of a different approach.
COOKING
1. Thawing
It is important to give the chicken enough time to thaw. For example, if you want to have chicken dinner tomorrow then make sure to take the chicken out of the deep freeze at least 24h before. Put the chicken on a bigger plate and then put the chicken on a lower shelf in your fridge (just in case it starts dripping from the plate).
24 hours of thawing time is enough for 2.2 kg chicken. If your chicken is bigger than 2.2 kg then add more hours for thawing.
* If you don't have 24 hours for thawing then Google for faster thawing tips.
2. Brining
The secret to tender chicken meat is brining. There are two ways to do it:
- Dry Brine
- Pat dry the chicken to remove excess moisture.
- Salt the chicken on the outside and inside. Use one 1 tablespoon of chicken per 500 grams of chicken.
- Put the chicken back in the fridge for at least 4 hours. (some even say 6-24 hours)
- Wet brine
- Mix 110-125 grams of salt with 3-3.5 liters of water in a big pot.
- Put the chicken in a pot while making sure that the chicken is fully covered by the liquid. Put the pot with chicken in the fridge for about 24 hours.
- Pat the chicken dry before cooking.
This is the part where I'd let you decide how you like your chicken but here are some tips:
- Mix 2 parts of butter with 1 part of olive oil. You can also add some garlic to the mix. Cover the outside and the inside of the chicken with the mix and try to get some under the skin of the chicken as well.
- You can put some garlic, onions, or lemon inside the chicken for amazing taste.
I've cooked chicken inside a cooking bag in an oven, or in a pressure cooker. There are many ways but I think that cooking chicken in an oven is accessible to most.
Oven cooking time at 175 Celcius is 45 minutes for every kg of chicken (20 minutes for every 0.45 kg). I suggest first heating the oven to 230 Celcius for the first 10-15 minutes of cooking to brown the skin and then bringing the heat back to 175 Celsius for the rest of the cooking time. When the chicken is ready then let it rest outside the oven for at least 15 minutes before serving.
* don't forget to add baking paper under the chicken
Extra tip:
If you have any leftovers then put then you can make some chicken soup. Put the leftovers in a big pot, add water and boil them with low heat for a couple of hours. Then use the stock to make some delicious chicken soup.
I'm still testing different ways to cook pastured broilers. You can google different pastured broiler or organic broiler recipes and test for yourself.
Please share any tips and feedback with me :)
I hope your chicken will be amazing.