Lesson 2: PREPARE POULTRY AND GAME DISHES

Chicken, turkey, duck and other poultry are the foods often served on the dining table. They
come and served as different courses, according to ones likeness and contentment. Poultry products are
frequently used in our everyday lives. It is consumed a lot because it consists of nutrients. A healthy
balanced diet can include protein from meat, as well as from fish and eggs or non-animal sources such as
beans and pulses. Meats such as chicken, pork, lamb and beef are all rich in protein. Red meat provides
us with iron, zinc and B vitamins. Meat is one of the main sources of vitamin B12 in the diet.

The National Bureau of Statistics (2014) confirms that it is those in the upper echelons of society
that spend the most on poultry products and so it seems reasonable to assume that it is these same
people who eat the most poultry products too. As we consume Poultry and Game products, we should
start learning and knowing how to select and purchase the perfect poultry meat.

Selecting and Purchasing Poultry and Games

Poultry consumption in the Philippines has increased remarkably in the last decade. This is
evident in the popularity of chicken dishes in restaurants all over the country.

Poultry refers to several kinds of fowl that are used as food and that includes chicken, turkey,
duck, pigeon and quail. These are usually domesticated, raised mainly for meat and or eggs. Birds that
are hunted for food are games.

Classification of Poultry and Games

Poultry Uses
 Chicken  Meats and eggs
 Duck  Meat, eggs, feather
 Turkey  Meat
 Goose  Meat, feather, eggs
 Quail  Meat, eggs
 Pigeon  Meat
 Guinea fowl  Meat
 Wild duck  Meat, feather
 Pheasant  Meat

The left side of the table shows the poultry or the types of fowl, and at the right side of the table
are its uses and the things that we can get from it.
 Chicken and other poultry may be divided into classes which are essentially of the same physical
characteristics associated with age, sex, live weight and breed.

1. Broiler or Fryer
 a broiler or a fryer is a young chicken, usually 9-12 weeks of age
 it is of either sex, male or female
 It has a tender meat with soft and pliable smooth-textured skin
2. Roaster
 A roaster is usually 5 to 6 months of age
 Typically, roaster chickens are slaughtered when they are about 14 weeks old, which
means they are usually larger in size than broilers and fryers which are usually
slaughtered when they are 7 weeks old.
3. Capon
 A capon is a surgically desexed male chicken usually under 8 months of age
 It is a male chicken that has been altered, either physically or chemically, to improve the
quality of its flesh for food, and, in some countries like Spain, fattened by forced
feeding.
4. Stag
 A stag is a male chicken
 Usually under 10 months of age, with coarse skin and a somewhat toughened darkened
flesh
5. Hen or a Stewing Chicken
 It is a mature female chicken which is usually more than 10 months of age
 It can be also a culled layer
 Stewing chickens are birds that lived a life as laying hens (aka the birds producing
eggs). Inevitably, with the passage of time, their production as egg layers diminishes to
the point where they're no longer cost effective to keep. At this point they're typically
butchered and sold as a “stewing hen”.
6. Cock or Rooster
 It is a mature chicken with coarse skin, toughened and darkened meat and hardened
breastbone tip.
 It is an adult male chicken
7. Jumbo Broiler
 This is a large chicken about 4kg dressed weight which are on sale especially during the
Christmas holiday.
Other Poultry

1. Pecking duck
 This is a breed of duck that originated from China and is noted for its tender and
flavorful meat.
2. Duck or Itik
 It is available and popular in many towns of Rizal as fried itik.
 The native or Pateros duck, commonly called itik, is the most popularly raised locally.
Although smaller than imported breeds, they are good layers and non-sitters. Their eggs
are large. Its predominant colors are black and gray.
3. Squab
 This is a young immature pigeon of either sex and has extra tender meat

Why do we need to consider the quality of a poultry?

In choosing or purchasing a poultry product, we need to consider the two most important
quality attributes for poultry meat, which is appearance and texture. Appearance is critical for both the
consumers' initial selection of the product as well as for final product satisfaction. Texture is the single
most important sensory property affecting final quality assessment. Appearance quality attributes
include skin color, meat color, cooked meat pinkness, and appearance defects such as bruises and
hemorrhages.

Since appearance is so critical for consumer selection, poultry producers go to great lengths to
produce products with the appropriate color for a particular market and to avoid appearance defects
which will negatively affect the product selection or price. Historically, meat tenderness was primarily
associated with live bird quality factors such as breed, sex, or age. However, modern production
practices produce highly uniform young birds in which the major problems associated with meat texture
are the result of processing errors or early deboning. Although other quality issues such as juiciness and
flavor are important, they are more of a function of product preparation and infrequent, but acute,
production or processing errors which are usually easily corrected or avoided. An understanding of the
major issues contributing to poultry color and meat tenderness is critical to producing uniform quality
products.

Color of cooked or raw poultry meat is important because consumers associate it with the product's
freshness, and they decide whether or not to buy the product based on their opinion of its attractiveness.
Poultry is unique because it is sold with and without its skin.
SELECTING GOOD QUALITY AND POULTRY GAME

If you’re choosing a good quality poultry and game, these are the qualities of the poultry
that you should select.

1. Live poultry. these are the certain feathered animals-domesticated birds, which are to
be brought in slaughterhouse, such as chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese.
 It has clear eyes
 A young chicken has fine and soft feet and if it is old, the feet is thick and scaly.
 The bone at the tip of the breast is soft in younger chicken while the bone on
the older chicken is thick.
 Small feathers indicates that the chicken is young
2. Whole poultry. These are slaughtered birds that have been bled and defeathered. It is a
poultry product that has been prepared for easy cooking.
 The head, feet and viscera of chickens are still intact
 they have moderate fat coverings
 They are clean and well fleshed
 They are free from pin feathers, showing no cuts, scars or missing skin.
3. Dressed poultry. These are slaughtered birds that have been bled, defeathered, and
the visceral organs are removed.
 Its skin is smooth and yellow in color
 The breast is plump or full round
 The thighs are well-developed
 It has no objectionable odor
 It is heavy and the skin is not watery
4. Ready-to-cook. The dressed birds may be cut up already marinated or seasoned. Ready-
to-cook poultry also means any cut-up or disjointed portion of poultry or other parts of
poultry, such as reproductive organs, head, or feet that are suitable for cooking without
need of further processing.
5. Poultry parts. The several pieces of a single poultry part that is usually packed in one
carton, wrapped and chilled or frozen. The various poultry parts are divided into any of
these following.
 dark meat- includes the drumsticks, thighs, wings, neck, backs and rib cage part
of the chicken
 white meat- contained by the breast part of the chicken
 giblets- it is the gizzard and heart part of the chicken
 Collectively, it is known that poultry provides companionship to humans, serves as a
source of food in the form of eggs and meat. As we contain or use poultry products as food and
include it on our daily diet, we ought to know the nutritional values it transmits to our body and
what are the components of the poultry product or poultry and game.

Nutritional Value and Components of Poultry and Game

Like meat, poultry contains high quality proteins. Chicken, the most consumed among the
fowls, it has 22.6% protein, 76.3% water and traces of fat, vitamins and minerals.

Poultry meat consists of dark and white muscles:

1. Dark Muscles are those found in parts of the fowl’s body which are always used.
These are the:
 Legs
 Thigh
 Wings
 Neck
 Rib cage

These are richer in fat, have more connective tissues, and have higher riboflavin and
myoglobin content. Most people prefer the dark meat than white meat because of
its juiciness and flavor.

2. White Meat  is meat which is pale in color before and after cooking.
 It is from the breast part of the chicken
3. Variety meats refers to the meat of such organs as the gizzard, heart, kidneys and liver.

There are several ways or process that we can prepare the poultry for cooking, which are:

 Slaughtering and bleeding- To prevent the risk of recovery, animals must be bled as

soon as possible after stunning, ideally, this should be conducted while the chicken is still
in the tonic (rigid) phase. Bleeding involves severing the carotid arteries and jugular
veins, or the blood vessels from which they arise. The animal then dies from loss of
blood.
 Scalding- Scalding is done to loosen the feathers prior to plucking, and this process is
performed by immersing the birds in warm water or through the use of a newly
developed process that involves exposure to steam.
 Defeathering- During defeathering, feathers are plucked out from the body of the
chicken.
 Evisceration- Evisceration, or removal of the chicken’s internal organs, follows during
which the birds are washed and inspected.
 Deboning- process that involves cutting meat away from the bone.
Market Forms of Poultry

Live Poultry

 Live poultry should be healthy, alert, and well-feathered.

 Avoid poultry that has bruises, blisters and broken bones

Whole Poultry

 Even though it’s not alive, the criteria for selecting live poultry are also applied to whole poultry.
Which the poultry should be healthy, alert, and well-feathered and doesn’t have any bruises,
blisters and broken bones.

Dresses Poultry

 This is the most available poultry form in the market. Dressed poultry are actually slaughtered
poultry with the head, feet, blood, feathers and internal organs removed. Good quality dressed
poultry should be free from slime, off-odors and discoloration.

Drawn Poultry

 These are dressed poultry that have been chilled or frozen. They are usually available in
groceries.

Ready-to-cook

 These are poultry parts such as wings, breast, thighs, or drumsticks, which have been separately
packed in a single container and frozen or chilled.

While purchasing a poultry in the market, you are often asked what part do you want or if you prefer
it sliced into different portions or should they give it to you as a whole. On our next topic, we are about
to discuss the different cuts of poultry.

Different Cuts of Poultry

 Whole Chicken- whole chicken are marketed either fresh or frozen. It is a whole bird without
giblets with all parts, including the breast, thighs, drumsticks, wings back and abdominal fat. It is
ideal for oven or even for soup and stews, if cut in parts and can also be used for making chicken
stock.

 Halves- The bird is split from front to back through the backbone and keel to produce 2 halves
of approximately equal weight. Both halves consist of white and dark meat which is ideal for
making Roasted Half Chicken.
 Breast Quarters- Halves may be further cut into which include the wing. A breast quarter,
including portions of the back is all white meat. It is the perfect cut to slice up in stir-fries,
marinate and grill, pan-fry or oven roast, filled with your favorite filling. This can also be baked
or poached and used in salad, sandwiches or shredded and put into soups.

 Split breast- A breast quarter with wing removed. Generally, it includes a little more than one
quarter of the meat on the chicken. The cut includes half a breast, a wing, and part of the back.

 Split Breast without back- A breast quarter without a wing and back portion. This can also be
cooked up in the oven and can also be used for making Roasted Split Chicken Breast.

 Boneless, Skinless Breast- Split breast that has been skinned and deboned. This chicken is good
for baking and roasting.

 8-Piece Cut- The whole bird is cut into 2 breast halves with ribs and back portion,2 wings, 2
thighs with back portion and 2 drumsticks. The parts may be packaged together and labelled as
whole cut-up chicken. These are usually sold without giblets.

 Whole chicken wing- The whole chicken wing is all-white meat portion composed of three
sections; the drummette, mid-section, and tip.

 Wing Drummettes- This is called the drumette, probably due to the fact that it's shaped like the
larger chicken drumstick. There's one main piece of bone in the middle, but there are some
joints and cartilage on both ends. This is the first section between the shoulder and the elbow.

 Wing Mid-section with Tip- The flat center section and the flipper (wing tip).

 Wing Mid-section-The section between the elbow and the tip, sometimes called the wing flat or
mid-joint.

 Whole Chicken Leg-Chicken legs include the drumstick and thigh combination. When the two
chicken pieces are left together, they're often called a leg quarter and sometimes a hindquarter,
though some people use leg when referring to the drumstick alone.

 Boneless, Skinless Leg- Boneless skinless legs are flexible pieces of chicken meat that no longer
have bones or joints in them. There are numerous methods of deboning chicken legs, each
involving making more than a dozen small cuts to remove multiple bones and a joint.

 Thigh- It is the top portion of the leg above the knee joint that is connected to the body of the
chicken. It consists the dark meat.

 Boneless-Skinless thigh- it is the thigh with skin and bone removed

 Drumsticks- This cut is sold bone-in and skin-on. Similar to thighs, drumsticks are a fattier,
tougher cut of meat compared to lean chicken breasts, although they also come with a lot more
flavor. Drumsticks include the lower portion of the leg quarter.

 Giblets- Giblets consist the gizzard, heart, liver and neck.