I'm really intrigued by your shio koji. I definitely want to learn more about its uses, and try to make some -- a kitchen project that is right up my alley. The roasting of chickens happens often hereabouts. I avoid "factory farmed" chicken, which I've seen sold cheaply as a loss leader in local grocery chain stores. Because I live in a rural area where there are year-round farmers markets, I have several options for locally raised chickens. My preference is the birds raised on regenerative farms, which follow the ruminative animals in rotation, eating bugs and grass, and scratching in the dirt. To me, they have the most flavor, but my husband complains that their meat is tough. He prefers the birds from a local poultry farm, which are "free range" ie. raised in large barns, uncaged, but not scrounging in the sunshine; they are not fed antibiotics. Because they do not get as much exercise as pasture-raised birds, their meat is softer, which he prefers. I do buy pasture-raised stewing hens, retired egg-layers, from a local farmer to make chicken stock, which I store in my freezer. I often roast whole birds, sometimes in my gas grill, which has a rotisserie motor, with a packet of soaked wood chips to add smoke, and sometimes spatchcocked in my oven. Either way, I always brine whole birds for 24-36 hours before cooking, in a salt-sugar solution that I simmer with aromatic vegetables and fresh herbs, lemon peel, and a pinch of dried lavender flowers. The long soak allows the flavor of the brine to permeate the meat all the way to the bone, and the basic brine effect insures that it stays juicy, despite the difference in cooking time between the light and dark meat. I also make a spice rub blend to have on hand at all times, made up of smoked paprika, cumin, coriander, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper and kosher salt, which I rub on the chicken, after a light coating of olive oil, prior to cooking. I use the same rub on beef steaks prior to grilling.
Sounds excellent Zora. I rarely plan far enough ahead to do a long brine or marinade. Shio koji adds depth to many cooking situations: as a smear on fish before grilling, rubbed onto a chicken, on vegetables before grilling, etc.
Yes, chicken became cheap once factory farming developed. There is a book called Big Chicken that tells the story, I've used it in teaching a few times. The combination of selective breeding (for bigger birds) and the accidental discovery that routine antibiotics (i.e. every day in their feed) makes chickens grow much bigger much more quickly enabled large, selling weight chickens at 6 weeks old rather that having to wait three to four months.
I am 100 percent with you in my preference for dark meat. I try to avoid eating the breast, but Americans do not agree. We have a significant problem in the US because Americans want to eat the breasts and the wings, but nothing else. Dark meat (legs and thighs) is "dumped" on the export market, sold at incredibly low prices in poorer countries where the influx of such cheap chicken destroys the local poultry industry.
Please do send me your shio koji recipe, including how you keep/store it once it's done! I won't be able to make it until the summer - there's nowhere in my apartment in Athens (fall semester) or my house in Minnesota (spring semester) that can be as warm as 22 degrees for a month :-(
Actually the 22 degrees is especially important only as it gets started. I put it near a heating vent when it's cold enough out to have the furnace on. I'll take a photo of the recipe and send it by email...please send me you email address. Mine is nomsola@gmail.com
50 years ago, when I lived in London, I would get my chicken from a cart in Camden Market. They had been layers that were no longer producing to the farmers standards. They had been beheaded and plucked, nothing more. In cleaning them, I would often find a couple of yolks ready to become eggs. These chickens were only fit for stewing but were quite tasty. Tarragon chicken with the broth thickened by the yolks was a no brainer.
Wonderful to have the yolks too. In Chiang Mai it's still possible to buy "village chicken", scrawny, fill of flavour, and usually loaded with inlaid yolks. The usual thing there is to rub it with herbs etc and steam it, with a bowl underneath the bird to collect the flavour. The meat is less important.
What a beautifully observed piece, Naomi. Your reflection on how chicken is sold today brought back a childhood memory from Israel — where the standing joke at weddings was that you could always count on getting a "quarter chicken", though no one ever seemed to know which quarter it was...
Lovely thoughts about the abundance of this season, evoking gratitude for all of that, even the turkey. It's the same feast in late November here in the Lower 48 and I often wonder why--why these particular foods--even as I roast a pork loin for the holiday, since no one in my family likes turkey. We are inundated, if that's the right word, with wild turkeys which have proliferated in Maine in the last decade or so. I once received a wild turkey from the farmer who had shot it. He cautioned me to make a good robust stock from the legs and cook only the breast in that stock. The legs, he said, were way too tough for eating but the breast meat, if cooked low and slow in the very tasty broth, now that could be a pleasure. In the event, I'm not so sure he was right.
I'm really intrigued by your shio koji. I definitely want to learn more about its uses, and try to make some -- a kitchen project that is right up my alley. The roasting of chickens happens often hereabouts. I avoid "factory farmed" chicken, which I've seen sold cheaply as a loss leader in local grocery chain stores. Because I live in a rural area where there are year-round farmers markets, I have several options for locally raised chickens. My preference is the birds raised on regenerative farms, which follow the ruminative animals in rotation, eating bugs and grass, and scratching in the dirt. To me, they have the most flavor, but my husband complains that their meat is tough. He prefers the birds from a local poultry farm, which are "free range" ie. raised in large barns, uncaged, but not scrounging in the sunshine; they are not fed antibiotics. Because they do not get as much exercise as pasture-raised birds, their meat is softer, which he prefers. I do buy pasture-raised stewing hens, retired egg-layers, from a local farmer to make chicken stock, which I store in my freezer. I often roast whole birds, sometimes in my gas grill, which has a rotisserie motor, with a packet of soaked wood chips to add smoke, and sometimes spatchcocked in my oven. Either way, I always brine whole birds for 24-36 hours before cooking, in a salt-sugar solution that I simmer with aromatic vegetables and fresh herbs, lemon peel, and a pinch of dried lavender flowers. The long soak allows the flavor of the brine to permeate the meat all the way to the bone, and the basic brine effect insures that it stays juicy, despite the difference in cooking time between the light and dark meat. I also make a spice rub blend to have on hand at all times, made up of smoked paprika, cumin, coriander, onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper and kosher salt, which I rub on the chicken, after a light coating of olive oil, prior to cooking. I use the same rub on beef steaks prior to grilling.
Sounds excellent Zora. I rarely plan far enough ahead to do a long brine or marinade. Shio koji adds depth to many cooking situations: as a smear on fish before grilling, rubbed onto a chicken, on vegetables before grilling, etc.
Yes, chicken became cheap once factory farming developed. There is a book called Big Chicken that tells the story, I've used it in teaching a few times. The combination of selective breeding (for bigger birds) and the accidental discovery that routine antibiotics (i.e. every day in their feed) makes chickens grow much bigger much more quickly enabled large, selling weight chickens at 6 weeks old rather that having to wait three to four months.
I am 100 percent with you in my preference for dark meat. I try to avoid eating the breast, but Americans do not agree. We have a significant problem in the US because Americans want to eat the breasts and the wings, but nothing else. Dark meat (legs and thighs) is "dumped" on the export market, sold at incredibly low prices in poorer countries where the influx of such cheap chicken destroys the local poultry industry.
Please do send me your shio koji recipe, including how you keep/store it once it's done! I won't be able to make it until the summer - there's nowhere in my apartment in Athens (fall semester) or my house in Minnesota (spring semester) that can be as warm as 22 degrees for a month :-(
Actually the 22 degrees is especially important only as it gets started. I put it near a heating vent when it's cold enough out to have the furnace on. I'll take a photo of the recipe and send it by email...please send me you email address. Mine is nomsola@gmail.com
Love the sound of that slow cooked chicken Naomi! Thanks for the inspiration 💕
50 years ago, when I lived in London, I would get my chicken from a cart in Camden Market. They had been layers that were no longer producing to the farmers standards. They had been beheaded and plucked, nothing more. In cleaning them, I would often find a couple of yolks ready to become eggs. These chickens were only fit for stewing but were quite tasty. Tarragon chicken with the broth thickened by the yolks was a no brainer.
Wonderful to have the yolks too. In Chiang Mai it's still possible to buy "village chicken", scrawny, fill of flavour, and usually loaded with inlaid yolks. The usual thing there is to rub it with herbs etc and steam it, with a bowl underneath the bird to collect the flavour. The meat is less important.
What a beautifully observed piece, Naomi. Your reflection on how chicken is sold today brought back a childhood memory from Israel — where the standing joke at weddings was that you could always count on getting a "quarter chicken", though no one ever seemed to know which quarter it was...
Thank-you!
Lovely thoughts about the abundance of this season, evoking gratitude for all of that, even the turkey. It's the same feast in late November here in the Lower 48 and I often wonder why--why these particular foods--even as I roast a pork loin for the holiday, since no one in my family likes turkey. We are inundated, if that's the right word, with wild turkeys which have proliferated in Maine in the last decade or so. I once received a wild turkey from the farmer who had shot it. He cautioned me to make a good robust stock from the legs and cook only the breast in that stock. The legs, he said, were way too tough for eating but the breast meat, if cooked low and slow in the very tasty broth, now that could be a pleasure. In the event, I'm not so sure he was right.