Real Muscle is Real Food with Pasture-Raised Chickens
Our customers often say our chicken tougher than they expect. We've come to associate tender chicken with the best, healthiest chicken, but it's actually the result of a sedentary lifestyle and carefully formulated feed.
It’s only natural that our pasture-raised chickens are stronger and less fatty than conventional chickens that eat feed inside a barn. They're eating a biologically natural diet they have to forage and hunt for in the sunshine.
Grocery store chickens have higher fat content and lower muscle tone.
In Canada, conventional meat chickens can roam within a barn on a bed of sawdust. They are not accessing fresh greens, roots, bugs, or gaining significant exercise, so their fat content is higher and their muscle tone is lower.
That fat keeps meat tender when you cook it, and the low muscle tone means soft meat.
Pasture-raised chickens are stronger.
Our chickens follow their instincts to root, graze, and scratch every day – sourcing healthy food from their environment while getting plenty of exercise.
They’re not as fat, they have stronger muscles, and they have firmer connective tissue – all from their biodiverse diet and outdoor exercise. They offer more beneficial nutrients with higher levels of Omega 3 fatty acids, vitamin D, and vitamin E.
We understand that a firm chicken may be an adjustment, so we’ve compiled the top tips from our staff for cooking delicious pasture-raised chicken:
1. Let it rest before cooking. Meat gets more tender as it ages. Our chickens are frozen immediately after they’re processed, making them very fresh when thawed. You might want to thaw the chicken a few days ahead of time in the fridge if you want to increase tenderness by aging it.
2. Brine the meat. Something acidic, salty, and sweet will help break down muscle fibres.
3. Add fat. We like to add olive oil or even beef tallow to the chicken skin before cooking.
4. Cook it low and slow. Decrease the temperature, cook it for longer, and keep it covered for the first half of cooking. Stop cooking right when it reaches the safe cooking temperature.
5. Let it rest before cutting. Five to ten minutes of rest time before cutting and serving the chicken will allow juices to redistribute throughout the meat.