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We discovered a long time ago that sacrificing the skin of a chicken during the butchering process saved a lot of time and aggravation:
One day I asked Grandpa, “Isn’t there an easier way to dress out a chicken?” He showed me a method with no need to pluck feathers and no smelly stench from a wet chicken. It’s just a fast, easy way to put meat on the table.
We discovered a long time ago that sacrificing the skin of a chicken during the butchering process saved a lot of time and aggravation:
One day I asked Grandpa, “Isn’t there an easier way to dress out a chicken?” He showed me a method with no need to pluck feathers and no smelly stench from a wet chicken. It’s just a fast, easy way to put meat on the table.
No need to sit there for hours plucking feathers off a carcass until your fingers seize up. Grandpa knew best!
Yessiree! If there's no reason to keep the skin (like you want a pretty whole roaster), just strip that sucker nekkid and get on with it. Much easier than plucking
But, you know, fried chicken legs and thighs really are so much better with that crispy skin
Usually I'll skin the barred rock roosters since my friends who fly fish want the feathers to make fishing lures. You can take the skin and pin it feather side down on a board and then heavily salt the back of it. Then let it dry out and you have a "feather shield" or "road chicken" wall ornament. Or something you can give your fishing friends.
If you want some really tasty crispy fried chicken, deep fry it in lard. That makes excellent fried chicken.
Considering half the chickens hatched are roosters and you only need about one rooster per every ten hens - if you keep a rooster around at all - it's a good thing "roosters taste just like chicken". (That's the gem of wisdom the new city neighbor told me after she had some "rooster soup".)
I've always heard that "fryers" are cockerels, and "broilers" are pullets -- since you tend to slaughter fryers earlier. whatever LOL Our first batch of straight run chicks, all but the strongest cockerel will meet the great dinner plate in the sky, but we'll be keeping about half of the hardiest pullets for layers.
Mmmmm --- lard. Lard just makes everything taste better, except for things that are better with butter, of course LOL Forget about vegetable shortening and margarine -- blech!! There is absolutely nothing that can't be made scrumptious by battering and deep frying it -- just ask the Brits ROFL
A recent essay that nicely captures why many preppers view the humble chicken as THE perfect self-sufficiency critter:
"... I've come to realize how important the chicken is to our civilization. It may be the most important animal that we have "domesticated." To those that know chickens I'm sure this will seem obvious, but, to me it was a revelation. I'd always taken the chicken for granted. Now I believe that anyone serious about "surviving" the crash had better have at a minimum a small flock of chickens to ease the transition."
So do you have a backyard flock, or plans for one?
Planning on having some chickens..we have a decent half acre plot...Chickens and maybe rabbbits.
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