French chickens

[mark111757 Profile]

Evening all..... was wondering how the French chicken rate taste wise. I see more articles about them. And I see that they are starting to pick up steam up in the states. The heritage breeds. Such as

https://joyce-farms.com/collections/her ... mier-whole

15.95$ or £12.39...how is the price versus when you can find it in Britain??

I had a few notions to oven roasted one of these for a special lady. As far as prep, smear some butter on the outside and put some in the cavity. No herbs or spices. I do not want to take away from the chix flavour.

What do you guys think? Thanks to all.

[Sakkarin Profile]

I've always understood that French Poulet de Bresse is the best chicken in the world, but I've never even seen it on sale, let alone tried it at the eye-watering prices I've seen quoted.

I'm not sure whether generic "French chicken" has any value over your local chicken, I suppose it depends what squalor your chickens are raised in. Here most chicken is reared in hellish conditions, basking in their own excrement, fighting each other for control of their pocket-handkerchief-sized piece of floorspace, and on sale for under three quid at the supermarket. I'm led to believe "free-range" chickens are not much better off, although it does push the price up to around £7.50 a chicken.

Poulet de Bresse - £35 a chook:

https://www.frenchclick.co.uk/p-3982-po ... gI59PD_BwE

EDIT: I see one reviewer on your linked page has tried both, and says that it compares favourably with Poulet de Bresse, so that's a definite maybe...

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Right
What you have on Mark's link is a Label Rouge de Fermier chuck

Label Rouge (red label, literally) lays down a set of strict standards for various foods and Fermier, farmer, indicates in this case fairly traditional farming techniques

Here are the Label Rouge standards for poultry (volailles) comparedto other standards, but obviously in French!

http://www.volaillelabelrouge.com/fr/les-volailles-un-elevage-different/

Key points are
1. Breed has to be a slow maturing variety
2. There are standards for the space allowed per animal, and allowing it outside, much higher welfare than standard but not quite as high as organic
3. Dietary standard, diet must be mainly grain
4. Age at slaughter must be more than 81 days, supermarket chx are slaughtered at 30 -60

It should be a very nice chicken, but if you can get a more locally raised organic chicken from a small producer it may well be as good

Looking at the Carrefour (big French supermarket) website the chicks run from about €8.99 to 10.99 depending on the region they are from, that's around 1.25 kg

Poulet de Bresse is a specific breed from a specific region grown to a specified standard, the best of the best, and priced accordingly
In UK label rouge is about £6 - 10 per kg, depending on size and weight but Bresse is £17.50 per kg

There are some on this link that fall outside my price range, but they are Bio (organic)


https://www.frenchclick.co.uk/c-71-poultry.aspx?sortby=1&dir=0&res=#results

[Joanbunting Profile]

Sakkers is right Poulet de Bresse are very very good and very very very expensive. I have had one a few times in which are Bresse and cooked one once because our butcher sells them, especially around Christmas time.

As Sue says (she got there before me!)I think what you are talking about Mark are red label chickens - free range and from selected farms. They come from all over France. I got a local one - well from the Drome, the next department, to cook tonight. It is a cornfed chook which I know will taste good and it was on special offer for 6.75E and weighed 1.5 kg which is, in fact very cheap here.

I can't imagine what freezing would do because I always buy chicken and cook it fresh. I agree that a locally raised organic chook would be just as good.

[Badger's Mate Profile]

A local producer tried producing a French variety of chicken alongside their standard ones. They sell their stuff at the Farmers' markets. However, the French ones were not as popular with the punters. To be fair, their other chickens are very nice, but the French ones were smaller (being slower growing) for a similar price, with darker meat and of different proportions, being rather less buxom, as it were.

[Sakkarin Profile]

Mark's chickens have never been to France, even on holiday! The farms are in North/South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia.

Certainly sounds as if they're liable to be top quality though from the website. I would go for one, for somebody special.

[Joanbunting Profile]

Mark's chickens have never been to France, even on holiday! The farms are in North/South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia.

Certainly sounds as if they're liable to be top quality though from the website. I would go for one, for somebody special.

Badger's Mate The chicken I buy here do indeed taste rather more of chicken, if you know what I mean. Also their bones seem to be much strongerthan the free range chicken I used to buy in the UK I guess it is because they do rather more jogging during their lives. The carcasses make fabulous stock which really jellifies.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Mark's chickens have never been to France, even on holiday! The farms are in North/South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia.

Certainly sounds as if they're liable to be top quality though from the website. I would go for one, for somebody special.

I didn't read far enough down, I just saw the label rouge logo and assumed they would be imported

The rules are presumably the rules though, if they stick to the 81 days you should notice a difference between the label rouge and a 40 day broiler just from that alone, quite apart from all the rest, $12 or so likely to be worth it for a special meal I think

There are labels rouges for lots of things, I previously looked up the standard for herbes de Provence for a thread on here (roughly equal parts of thyme, rosemary, savoury and oregano with a smidge of Provencal / Greek basil, if you have fresh herbs try it as a bouquet )

[Pampy Profile]

Apparently there are 4 types of Bresse poultry http://www.pouletdebresse.fr/the-abc-of ... n/?lang=en

[Sakkarin Profile]

I see number 4 is capons. I remember as a young teenager on our family holiday, staying in a caravan on a farm which raised capons. On being told what a capon was, I'm afraid I felt rather sorry for the little blighters.

[jeral Profile]

...[clip]...
I had a few notions to oven roasted one of these for a special lady. As far as prep, smear some butter on the outside and put some in the cavity. No herbs or spices. I do not want to take away from the chix flavour.

What do you guys think? Thanks to all.

Some people put chilled butter under the breast skin after loosening it away from the meat, to stop the breast meat drying out.

See video, one minute long:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3YY3Eb9x9I

We are told not to stuff the cavity anyway because the denseness stops the heat penetrating and might leave some meat undercooked, so for herb stuffing (or the pork meat sort of stuffing), it's recommended that you make that as stuffing balls and cook them on a separate tray put in the oven much later in time to finish simultaneously.

I'd be inclined to leave out spices. Maybe for the leftover meals, e.g. paprika-dusted potato wedges so still not interfering with the chicken.

Just my thoughts - I'm sure others are better meat cooks than I am.

[Badger's Mate Profile]

Badger's Mate The chicken I buy here do indeed taste rather more of chicken, if you know what I mean. Also their bones seem to be much strongerthan the free range chicken I used to buy in the UK I guess it is because they do rather more jogging during their lives. The carcasses make fabulous stock which really jellifies.

The Herts-bred ones were nice, too, but different from the current UK fashion. More like a Guinea fowl in shape and colour. Whatever the benefits, I feel we've lost something with the commoditisation of chickens and the fashion for white meat. At home we have Guinea fowl and pheasants at least as often as we have chickens.

Another 80 day bird, Label Anglais chickens were raised on a farm up the road (over the border ) in Roydon, although now the brand has been sold to a larger outfit in the midlands. I haven't tried one since, but always thought the Hare street ones we have are at least as nice. All are upwards of a tenner of course. I feel the farms are between a rock and a hard place though. They would not be able to sell them if they charged much more, so they have to produce them down to a price, which means the varieties are faster growing, more plumptious than French ones, but perhaps less chicken flavoured.

Re capons, when I lived with my dad we used to have a different roast each Sunday. In turn it would be beef, pork, lamb, rabbit/pork strips, duck, chicken. If it was a Bank Holiday weekend, we'd get something a bit bigger and this often meant a capon.

Maybe that's why I'm slightly built and not very hairy....

[Joanbunting Profile]

Our chicken last night was lovely. I meant to keep the label which hung roundit declaring that it was certified as :
A black chicken (rather obvious from the colour of it's legs). From the Drome and raised "at liberty in the open air". The children use to call free range eggs and chicken "Elevated in Plain Air". Fed on corn and other vegetable material.
M in a fit of tidyness, thre the label out!

I roasted it as I always do, rubbed with butter or olive oil, sometimes both and seasoned. Half a lemon and some tarragon in the body cavity then roasted on a rack in a tin turning and basting 4 times. Starting off on the front and then each side and finally on it's back. Result moist chicken meat browned crisp skin..

[jeral Profile]

Joanbunting, I wondered if anyone would mention cooking upside down cooking at first but wasn't sure if that was more (or only) applicable to larger birds. Seemingly not. How big was yours?

On the offchance that your expensive bird, mark111757, might be smaller than you're used to cooking, perhaps use a thermometer, either oven or meat one, or both. This because my son cooked a small duck once and darn near incinerated it. Mind you, he does seem to have pyromaniac tendencies of having heat way too high for everything.

Maybe Badger's Mate and others might have handy tips on timings and checking doneness for less pump birds. Presumably they're not injected with water or brine as some cheaper ones are. In taste tests, brine-injected ones were deemed juicier but I doubt that posh birds are injected.

For a special occasion, I'd be tempted to do a trial run so you can appear to be blasé on the night as it'd be offputting if you were more preoccupied with the chicken than your guest I hope it goes well of course, whatever you decide on

[Badger's Mate Profile]

I also use tarragon and lemon, but roast the chicken on a bed of veg - onion, garlic, carrot, celery/celeriac when available - and liquidise same when cooked to make the gravy, adding stock if required. The carcase gets pressure cooked for stock and frozen for the next batch of gravy.

Typically I'll put OO & S&P on the bird, roasting it upside down to start with and then the right way up to finish. I add a hint of baharat to the veg before roasting. I think 5 spice would work too (anise + carrots = ) as does turmeric or paprika, but just add a hint.

I've always stuck a fork in to test for doneness, but got a thermometer a couple of years ago. Sometimes the meat is cooked through to the bone but the bone is reddish, which can alarm some people. My old Belling was '20 minutes per pound and 20 over' just like the post war cookbooks said, but the Jerry-built oven I use now seems a bit quicker. I usually use a pyrex casserole with the lid off - the sort that used to be called a chicken roaster - to get browning but keep it all moist.

In the 'good old days' I never had any trouble at all cooking a chicken full of stuffing, but I suspect I don't cook them as long now and if I make stuffing, usually sausage, sage and onion, it's cooked separately.

One more thing, I take the wings off. They're stockpiled in the freezer and either added to giblet stews or cooked as a separate dinner (eg with peppers & black beans)

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Tarragon, yuk
I didn't like it even before I developed the allergy to it, it's one of those things I really dislike so much I have trouble believing anyone really likes it (though logic tells me you can't all be lying )

Lemon, garlic, parsley for me thanks

[strictlysalsaclare Profile]

Tarragon makes me go 'yuck' too Stokey Sue, as does parsley and coriander in anything non-mexican/Tex-Mex or non fishy. On the rare occasions I roast a chicken I tend to use rosemary , thyme or bay, as well as the obligatory lemon and garlic !

I'm afraid I can't add much to the French chook discussion because we can't afford it. However,, pre Mr Strictly I did one buy some free range French chicken breasts from Sainsburys (mainly because I dropped the pack due to shocked at the price, and broke the corner off) and wasn't impressed at all. It was tasteless and as tough as old boots, even after I marinated one for several hours in desperation.

[Badger's Mate Profile]

It has never occurred to me that people might dislike tarragon!

Does that aversion include other aniseed flavours such as star anise, 5 spice, fennel, or pastis?

It's a well established phenomenon that some people find coriander tastes soapy; it's a genetic trait apparently.

There's a running joke at home about parsley. I once made some tabbouleh. Mrs B wasn't keen and said "if you were to make this again, what would you change?"

Now, rather like actors who never mention the title of 'the Scottish play', we refer to the herb in terms of what else we might use in future

[Stokey Sue Profile]

It has never occurred to me that people might dislike tarragon!

Does that aversion include other aniseed flavours such as star anise, 5 spice, fennel, or pastis?

It's a well established phenomenon that some people find coriander tastes soapy; it's a genetic trait apparently.

There's a running joke at home about parsley. I once made some tabbouleh. Mrs B wasn't keen and said "if you were to make this again, what would you change?"

Now, rather like actors who never mention the title of 'the Scottish play', we refer to the herb in terms of what else we might use in future

Now that's a part of what puzzles me
I love aniseed, I have currently about 1.75 litres of pastis in the house (it was on offer so I stocked up)
I like fennel a lot (though to me it's only the seed that taste really of aniseed)
Tarragon does not taste of aniseed, it tastes of tarragon, and it's vile as far as I am concerned
Though I think Zoe may have had a point when she suggested that I replace tarragon in recipes with a splash of pastis, on the grounds that the person who put in there originally was expecting a hint of anise, makes sense

I can't really experiment, as I am now sure I am mildly allergic to it and I don't want to risk but I always hated it; years ago a friend put a splash of tarragon vinegar in a green salad unbeknownst to me, and I nearly spat it into her face, I reacted to it and knew what it was instantly.

Love coriander and parsley

[jeral Profile]

There seems to be no rhyme or reason. Perhaps better to stay clear initially of known culprits altogether when cooking for another.

My foible is liking aniseed balls and liquorice shoelaces, but not caraway seeds, 5-spice, or fennel seeds in cooked things - they're like dill and coriander leaves to me, all better left out. It's impossible to put a finger on it - they just make things taste funny (not nice) as kids tend to say about any herbs.

PS: I like the intense flavour of parsley in that dish that's only parsley bound with a spot of egg white. No rhyme or reason.