The versatility, the popularity, and the relatively low cost of poultry items make them ideal for all kinds of food service operations, from elegant restaurants to cafeterias and fast-food restaurants. Also, chicken and turkey are popular among diet-conscious people because they are lower in fat and cholesterol than other meats.
Game birds, such as pheasant, are also increasing in popularity and availability because they are now raised domestically by many producers. Farm-raised game birds are similar, in many ways, to chicken, so learning techniques for cooking and handling chicken teaches you a great deal about handling these other birds as well.
Learning about poultry is, in some ways, easier than learning about meats like beef and lamb. Because chickens, turkeys, and other poultry are much smaller, they are not cut up in such detail.
However, poultry has its own cooking problems, so it is important to observe both the similarities and the differences between meat and poultry.
COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE
The flesh of poultry and game birds is muscle tissue, as is the flesh of beef, lamb, veal, pork and game. Its composition and structure are essentially the same as those of meat.
Remember that muscle tissue is composed of
Water (about 75 percent)
Protein (about 20 percent)
Fat (up to 5 percent)
Other elements, including carbohydrate, in small quantities
Remember that muscles consist of muscle fibers held together in bundles by connective tissue.
MATURITY AND TENDERNESS
We know that the tenderness of a piece of meat-or poultry-is related to connective tissue and that connective tissue increases with
• Use or exercise of the muscle.
• Maturity or age of the animal or bird.
1. Use or exercise is of less concern in poultry. Most poultry is so young that it is relatively tender throughout. However, there are some differences , between light meat and dark meat.
2. Maturity is a major consideration when selecting poultry. Young, tender birds are cooked by dry-heat methods, such as broiling, frying, and roasting, as well as by moist-heat methods. Older, tougher birds need slow, moist heat to be made palatable.
Maturity is the major factor in categorizing each kind of poultry. Skin color is determined by diet and is not related to the flavor or tenderness of the poultry.
FREE-RANGE CHICKENS
Most chickens on the market are produced by large operations that house their poultry indoors in carefully controlled environments and feed them scientifically monitored diets. This process enables the industry to raise healthy chickens quickly and in large numbers to meet the great demand. Many people feel that these chickens lack flavor because they are not allowed to move around outdoors. Some farmers, in response, offer free-range chickens, which are allowed to move around freely and eat outdoors in a more natural environment.
It is important to note that there is no legal definition of free-range, and that freerange chickens are considerably more expensive than ordinary chickens. Many people, however, feel that free-range chickens are more flavorful and are worth the extra cost.
Because quality varies from producer to producer, it is necessary to do careful taste testing to determine whether you want to purchase free-range poultry for your operation
A term related to free-range is organic, which has recently been defined by the USDA as food produced without using most conventional pesticides, fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge, bioengineering, or ionizing radiation.
LIGHT MEAT AND DARK MEAT
Poultry is not divided into as many small cuts as are meats. Chicken and turkey, however, are usually thought of as consisting of two kinds of parts, depending on the color of the meat. These color differences reflect other differences:
“Light meat”-breast and wings
Less fat
Less connective tissue
Cooks faster
“Dark meat”-legs (drumsticks and thighs)
More fat
More connective tissue
Takes longer to cook
Duck, goose and squab have all dark meat, but the same differences in connective tissue hold true.
The dark color of dark meat is due to a protein called myoglobin. This protein stores oxygen for muscles to use during periods of great activity. The breast muscles of birds are used for flying, and because chickens and turkeys rarely, if ever, fly, these muscles don’t need a great deal of myoglobin.
In flying birds, such as ducks, the breast muscles have more myoglobin and thus are darker. Active muscles, in addition to being darker, also have more connective tissue.
The cook must observe these differences when preparing poultry.
1. Cooking whole birds.
Everyone has tasted chicken or turkey breast so dry it was difficult to swallow. In fact, light meat is overcooked more often than not because it cooks faster than the legs and is done first. In addition, the breast has less fat than the legs, so it tastes much drier when cooked (or overcooked).
A major problem in roasting poultry is cooking the legs to doneness without overcooking the breast. Chefs have devised many techniques to help solve this problem. Here are some of them.
• Roasting breast down for part of the roasting period. Gravity draws moisture and fat to the breast rather than away from it.
• Basting with fat only, not with water or stock. Fat protects against drying, but moisture washes away protective fat.
• Barding, or covering the breast with a thin layer of pork fat.This is usually done with lean game birds.
• Separating breast from leg sections and roasting each for a different time.
This is often done with large turkeys.
2. Cooking poultry parts.
Many recipes have been devised especially for certain poultry parts, such as wings, drumsticks, and boneless chicken breasts. These recipes take into account the different cooking characteristics of each part. For example, flattened boneless chicken breasts can be quickly sautéed and remain juicy and tender. Turkey wings, when
braised, release enough gelatin to help make a rich sauce.
Many of these items have especially high customer appeal, especially boneless chicken breast, and are served in the most elegant restaurants.
Those that use cut-up whole chickens can easily be adapted for specific parts. For example, you may want to buy whole chickens, braise the leg sections, and reserve the breasts for other preparations.