26th April 2019 - Levelling Up - Chicken Wrangler

Thought for the day ; "You are only young once – but you can be immature forever"

Saw this and decided I should keep it here...
Sadly no "nifferkin" there  !

Yesterday I broached a new era in experience.
As Susie is in hospital I faced the problem of what to do with the Chickens. No, not the ones int he chicken coup - they can feed and grow a little bigger - though we may run out of time to cull them before we go to Crete.  No, my problem was with the two that she had killed the night before going into hospital, and which were hanging up on the downstairs washroom waiting to be cleaned.
Now one of these was quite small - turns out to be 2lb 4oz but the other one was just under 4lb.
And dead!
And they had 11 weeks of feeding and nurturing and would make at least a couple of meals and were a fairly large investment!  And Dead - I did mention that I think!
She had blanched and plucked them so that was one bonus but they were still hanging in the washroom and unlike pheasant - you do not hang chicken for more than a day!

Of course - the easiest solution was to phone a friend.. especially when that friend was a retired Vet. He must know all about cutting into animals - though normally alive I would have thought, but sadly after a few attempts it is clear that he is not going to be home!.

To put things into context, I gave up Biology in school in the second year. I never got the opportunity to cut any living or dead things up in school. I also do not have much of a fascination with what happens underneath the skin. I am not one to watch "Your life in their hands" or other medical exploratory shows. My main medical knowledge was found from watching M.A.S.H. and that was only really seeing blood spurting into the mask with some dark humour...

I also had never shown an interest in watching the gutting of food. I am a Phlistine I know but my meat normally grows in plastic in Tesco, and I am fairly content with that level of knowledge.

But two chickens were still hanging in the washroom !

In the old days - it would have been a problem, as getting my copy of Encyclopædia Britannia down off the shelf would have left me with the written word but not likely to assist any more in explaining to the ignorant how to approach the subject. But nowadays we have google and Youtube!!

And so - an hour later, and five videos I have a rough idea of the basic principles and the order in which to approach the matter and the dangers of not splitting the gut, the crop ad the intestines - and in particular not piercing the gall bladder! And even a fair chance of recognising some of those items!

Kitchen scrubbed - and a dog gazing avidly at the corpses - not realising that I do not know which bits are safe to give to the dog as they spill from the central cavity and destined for disappointment as those bits go into the food recycle bag and not a hungry mouth.

The first one goes reasonably - I choose the smallest - as that may go to feed the dog anyway apparently. Unfortunately the video does not work very well int he kitchen - the wi-fi is very poor - so I have to keep watching 20 seconds sitting on the stairs and rushing back to the kitchen. I decide to use some latex gloves that I use for cooking or other dirty jobs normally. That means that I cannot swipe the Tablet or stop or start the video as it is a touch screen!! I find the solution - cutting the end of the pinky on my left hand so the screen will accept the pressure!    I wield my knife just the way they do in the video and slowly we get the top and bottom sorted out. I face a problem however - my hands are pretty big to try and get into the body of a small chicken and as I clean it out - I practically split the chicken into two! It will look strange in the cooking pot - a little manhandled!

The second one goes a little easier. I remember Susie saying that she has a sharp pair of Kitchen scissors in the  knife case and that she uses them!!  So I try - and find that it is much easier to snip away at the skin rather than try to cut through without over cutting!!  I work the rest with the scissors and it goes a lot more smoothly- I recommend it to anyone.

And so the second one is scraped out and both are washed out successfully.

Now to dry them and vacuum pack them with the "seal a meal" vacuum machine - for which there is no manual or instructions. It is not difficult - a little like a laminator but you have to know that there is a separate "drip tray" which fits into the drip cavity or it doesn't work!!  And if you have not seen it before then you don't know that it is missing !

So good old google gives me the list of on-line manuals of which one is for the same sort of model. Sneaky web-page though - every place it says "download" it is for another application that they are selling - and you don't get to see the little button hidden at the top which says (in very small writing) "View Manual" But finally I get to read the instructions. So I open the lid - and find that there is a series of little pictures that tell you how to use the machine !!!  Well - at least I have confirmation!!.

And so - a few minutes later - there are two neatly packed vacuum shrunk packages - clearly marked with the weight, the date and a big black cross saying "Done by Iain" so they can be checked for quality when we finally defrost them...

But an achievement - though not one that I really want to do again - though at least I know that I am capable now ..

This is, of course, how they will look (Photo-shopped!)

So - off to Chepstow for an Installation as it looks as though Susie is in for the weekend ..

DAY 3 : What I would have as my rules if I were an Evil Overlord!

Cheers !