Chicken

Birds

Animals

• General and History
• Types, Sizes & Uses
• Yields - meat, skin, fat, bones.
• Preparing and Cooking Chickens
  • Simmering
• Chicken Parts
  • Feet
  • Gizzards
• Links

Unlike turkeys, you don't have to chose between hens and toms because they aren't marked. Several sizes of chicken are available on the market to be used in different ways. Growers generally use different varieties for each size, the object being to select varieties that "plump out" (develop thick breast meat) at different ages and weights. From youngest to oldest:

• Poussin: A really young chicken weighing about 1 pound, enough for one person (so long as there's plenty else to eat). These won't be found in the supermarket but can be obtained from specialty butcher shops.
• Cornish Game Hen: A small chicken weighing between 1 and 2 pounds - generally found frozen in the supermarkets. A large one can serve two persons if there is much else.
• Fryer / Broiler: A young chicken killed at 7 to 13 weeks and weighing between 3 and 5 pounds. This is your standard supermarket chicken, sold both fresh and frozen in mass market, boutique and kosher formats. Serves 3 to 4 people.
• Roasters: A mature chicken killed at 3 to 5 months and weighing between 4-1/2 and 8 pounds. Often parts are too thick to fry and some consider them less than ideal for roasting as well, but I figure if you can roast a turkey you can probably roast a large chicken. Serves 5 to 7 people.
• Capon: A rooster that's had his rocks cut off in childhood so he grows up big and soft and doesn't bother the hens or fight with other capons. They are generally killed at under 8 months when they will weigh 6 to 9 pounds. The meat is tender and considered the finest flavor of all chickens, but the bird will have more fat than others.
• Stewing Chicken: Over 10 months old, 5 to 8 pounds and not generally found in the supermarkets. They're often a byproduct of the egg industry - hens beyond their peak laying age.
• Old Hen: A barnyard chicken generally at the end of her egg production. Tasty but tough and should be long cooked in soup or stew. Old Rooster is even tougher. It's said you can boil him until the bones dissolve and the meat will still be tough. I've cooked old hen and that was tough enough.

• To replace a whole chicken with skinless/boneless meat you need a little over half the weight of the whole chicken called for.
• To replace skinless/boneless meat with a whole chicken you need a chicken weighing (after removing giblets) a little less than twice the meat called for.
• Percentages do not add up to 100%. The missing material is either absorbed into stock or debris strained out of the stock.

Weight of simmered meat is 64% of weight of same meat raw, fried or roasted would be a bit less (water loss).

For parts: left weight = whole weight, right weight = meat only