poulet à l'estragon

I had a remaining chicken from this summer's slaughter in the freezer and a whole pot of tarragon that may not survive many more frosts. Logical conclusion: make poulet à l'estragon (chicken with tarragon). I followed Julia Child's Poulet poêlé à l'estragon (after a summer of telling myself I'd make the cold aspic version, Poulet en gelée à l'estragon, and now it's too cold for that).

The chicken is seasoned, stuffed with tarragon and butter, trussed and seared on all sided in a dutch oven. It then gets roasted — covered — until done. I had worried that the chicken would steam, and the skin wouldn't have that great roasted texture. I was wrong. The skin was great. A sauce of more tarragon, the drippings and some beef stock made this sublime.


This was easily one of the best ways that I have ever had chicken. This was also a larger cockerel (four-and-a-half pounds!), so it benefited from this tenderizing preparation. I served this with roasted sunchokes and brussels sprouts.

Tiffiniy declared that she had never known she could like white meat. It was that good. That was how I felt when I cooked the first one.

roast chicken

This big fellow was one of the roosters recently slaughtered; I wanted to make its preparation simple to highlight the bird itself — this is the first animal I have eaten in whose slaughter I was involved. I made an herb butter with unsalted butter, salt, tarragon, garlic, lemon, brandy and thyme. I spread that in and out and under the skin of the breast.


I started the bird at 425ºF, rotating it from side to breast-up-to side and then leaving it on it's side at 350º. (Julia Child suggests the majority of the roast to be on its sides — switch sides halfway through). It finished breast up.


I made a quick gravy with drippings, butter and vermouth and we had this with lightly steamed and buttered zucchini and squash (thanks Molly!), a fennel-potato-spring onion gratin, and a brown rice "risotto" with porchini and reduced stock from those feet. The meat was incredibly tender, flavorful and incredibly satisfying. Nothing compared to those industrial birds.

Served with raspberry-cranberry braggot and finished with Molly's tart blueberry-peach crisp, this was perfect.

acknowledging what goes into my dinner (slaughtering chickens)

Today my roommate, a friend, and I went to out friend Maria's to help her slaughter, pluck and clean some of the 75 chickens that she has been raising for her wedding dinner.

Their final day was spent much as any other. They've been in a tractor with a larger fenced in area so that they're always moving around the property, eating grubs, grass and kicking up soil.

Here two of us are retrieving some chickens.


And I've got one. They relax once you hold them close to your body. The chickens were far from the actual slaughter area, so they were oblivious to their fate.


And here's the first step. The highway cones allow for the chicken to be held upside-down for proper exsanguination.

It also holds them them firmly and minimizes post-mortem spasms.


Here's said chicken going into the cone.


A quick slice to the artery just under the jaw starts the blood flowing.


And a quick piercing to the brain cuts consciousness. The heart still pumps for a bit, relieving the bird of most of its blood. Once that's done a few muscle spasms — which are alarming at first — happen.


And then it's silent. The blood stops flowing.


And a knife gets re-sharped.


The bird gets scalded at 140ºF for 50-60 seconds.


That makes plucking (we did this by hand) much easier.


And soon we start to see the familiar contours of a roaster.


The head is removed. Finding a vertebra comes easier as this goes. I'd try to pop a vertebra out of line and cut the flesh/tendons around.



A few slices around the esophagus and trachea free it to be tugged out.


And then the backside of the chicken is opened.


The viscera are then removed. We found this to happen the most easily if the vent were left intact and removed with the rest. This way the intestines remained intact. We also gained agility and were able to preserve the livers without damaging/contaminating them. My boss, who was also there to help, kept these.

I kept the legs. And necks.


A cleaned, washed and ready-for-the-caterer bird.


On ice. Maria wrapped them to go straight to the freezer.

—

I was ready and willing to stop eating meat if I found this too terrible to do. I was a vegetarian for a long time and as I've incorporated meat back into my diet I've been telling myself that this was important. And I feel that in the end I can live with the violence of slaughtering animals in a way that isn't cruel, that's on a reasonable scale and that supported the animal's well-being during its life. These chickens grazed on fresh pasture and were rotated to new grass every day or two. They ate grubs and grass and mostly organic feed. They had lots of sun (when it wasn't raining of course). And in the end, the more time I spend with chickens, the more I feel that this is okay. This was a powerful and very positive experience.

—

Thanks to Jaime for the photos.