Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Experimental Chicken

The woman who helps me with tracking for Toe - asked me if I wanted some raw chix.  Some company she works for does chix studies... then butcher the chix and the employees can take them home.  I said sure as long as I won't be contaminated with hormones, drugs or radioactivity... she laughed and said no.
 
I gave her a smallish cooler - the only hard sided cooler we have - and I came home to it packed to the gills with raw chix - blood traces - some raw chicken bits on the outside of it.  (there was a dead guy found in a suitcase in Denver and I'm imagining this as I am handling the cooler)
 
She told me cuz the chix was just butchered, I needed to wash it and put it on ice for 2 days to cool it.  I guess you can't put freshly butchered chix meat in the freezer or it will sour.  I thought I could just cook it all and freeze it but she said no to that too.  It has to age.  She said I don't hunt otherwise I would know this... 
 
I told her I'm glad we can still be friends even tho' I don't hunt.  She didn't laugh.  But I was.... on the inside.
 
I got home from the dog show with a bag o' ice from the gas station where I filled up... I drank a beer for courage cuz I think raw chix is totally GROSS.  And I washed off 20 to 25lbs raw chix... mostly breasts and thighs with the drumsticks attached.  There were wings but I don't really eat wings unless sometimes at a bar but know I wouldn't prepare wings.  Some of the wings have ID tags in them... like leg bands for identification but wing bands instead?  Made it that much more special. 
 
I put ice in the bottom of our Thanksgiving Day turkey roasting pan, put a layer o' chix parts, more ice, another layer of chix parts, covered it with tin foil and stuck it in the fridge in the bunk house.  Washed the rest, emptied out the cooler with bloodied ice water in it - cleaned the cooler - put ice in the bottom, the rest of the chix bits, more ice on top and stuck that in the bunk house fridge as well.
 
I put all the chix wings in the now empty ice bag, tied it shut and put it in our trash can outside. 
 
Gross.
 
But cool cuz we have 20lbs o' free chix.  Can't believe I did that.  You have no idea how wiggy I am about raw poultry.  (yeah, yeah - whatever - I grew up friggin city kid eating chef boy-ar-dee from a can for meals with a single dad who didn't really cook so cut me some slack - I'm just lucky I wasn't stunted or my bones grew malformed from some vitamin deficiency - hey,  let's hear it for Flintstones chewable vitamins!)  I spent 30 min. sanitizing the area when all was said and done... bleach, bleach and more bleach.  Ewww.
 
Furry Husband and I bagged it up last night and stuck it in the freezer --- after I spilled bloodied experimental chix water all over the floor moving it to the kitchen for final rinse and freezer bags.   
 
Our dogs thought that was way cool.... mmmm.... raw, bloody, chix water! and ran to lap it up.  We put them out and I bleached the floor. 
 
Poor dogs... I never let them have any fun.  
 
 

4 comments:

Cheryl said...

They must be tiny! If you'd left the wings on, then roasted them, how cute would that have been?!!

DebH said...

way to go...but experimental chicken?? Do they cross or try to invent new breeds?? I would want to know more about it, but chicken if its fresh it'll be good. Gotta hear more about what they do??
and poor pups, I bet their noses were really wondering what was for supper!

Kelley said...

Good for you for taking the chicken, and way to toughen up in having to handle all that raw chicken (I'm not a big fan either). I didn't know it needed to age and chill, etc. Interesting!

I have had friends on animal science research projects, and every experiment has controls (a few animals that are either given saline or nothing to compare).... lots of those control lambs, cows, etc ended up on graduate student BBQs and stove tops. Got'a get the good meat to people that will use it! YAY Shannon!

Shanster said...

Cheryl - um... no. grin.

DebH- things like baking soda studies or like Kelley below says -control groups... no drugs or hormones or toxic waste.

Kelley - yeah - animal science mos' definately has it's benefits! grin.