First Find Your Chicken!

Posted on March 18, 2008 in Food and Drink by admin

Chicken is probably the most popular, the most versatile and one of the best-loved foods on the planet.

It’s also the most abused and taken for granted!

There are chickens and chickens, and not all chickens are created equal.

In the UK and USA we seem to have become obsessed with the idea of cheap food. And the cheaper the better! If we can go along to our local supermarket and buy a chicken for a couple of pounds or a few dollars, we become wildly overjoyed and start acting like we have discovered some sort of culinary Holy Grail.

Few, if any, of us stop to wonder precisely why the chicken is that cheap.

Could it have something to do with the way it has been reared, the conditions it has been kept in, the food it has been given to eat, the diseases it may have been exposed to along the way?

In the matter of choosing and appreciating quality foods we can all learn some valuable lessons from our European cousins.

In France (and Italy, too, for that matter), price is not the most important factor in the process of buying a chicken. There are other, more overriding, questions to ask. Questions like: Where does it come from? How was it reared? What was it fed on? Does it have a label signifying a particular level of quality?

And, most important of all, what will it taste like when it’s cooked?

Choosing the right chicken is probably the most essential part of the whole preparing/ cooking/ serving process.

I’m not saying that French housewives aren’t concerned about price. Of course they are. But not at the expense of quality and taste. That’s the difference.

The very best chickens in France (and therefore in the world) are the legendary poulets de Bresse.

Bred in the area around the town of Bourg-en-Bresse, just south of Lyons, these cosseted and pampered birds carry the all-important AOC (Apellation d’Origine Controllée) quality mark, grudgingly bestowed by the French government.

These are farm-reared, free-range birds. They are used in most of the top French restaurants. Their flesh is white and deep-textured, the flavour is out of this world, and they are revered in the same way that a bottle of fine wine or vintage cognac is revered.

Unfortunately, it’s rather difficult to find these rare and beautiful birds outside France, particularly since the widespread bird ‘flu scares of recent years.

And I believe that their import into the USA is strictly prohibited.

But all is not lost. Many poultry breeders in the UK and USA are beginning to realize that there is a large and mostly unexploited demand for high-quality chickens, guinea fowl, quail, etc. – and are gearing up to meet that demand.

A good example is the black-legged chicken from Norfolk in the UK (which super-chef Gordon Ramsay enthusiastically endorses). There are also the Label Anglais and Special Reserve breeds from Essex in the English Home Counties.

I’m sure there are similar enterprising companies in the USA too. Try to find a local specialist dealer and ask their advice. Or do a search on Google.

What you are looking for is a farm-reared, free-range, preferably wholly organic bird that has been fed partly on corn or maize and partly left to its own devices, scratching and scraping around the farmyard and gobbling up all the juicy seeds, plants, worms and insects which come its way.

All of which is reflected in the taste and texture of the finished product, ie the chicken on your plate!

Believe me – they’re out there somewhere!

This article has been adapted from a chapter in the author’s ebook ‘How To Cook A Chicken – The French Way!’ It’s packed full of tips, tricks and techniques for cooking the perfect chicken every time – and it’s a steal! You can check it out here:
http://www.cwpublishers.com/poulet

Tags: cooking a chicken, french cooking, french cuisine

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