Chicken Shopping

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How to Make Breaded Chicken

How to Make Chicken Cutlets

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Shopping for Chicken

The USDA recognizes three types of chicken:

• fryers or broilers (under 7 weeks old with a cleaned weight of 2½ to 4 pounds)

• roasters (about 4 months old and 5 to 7 pounds), and

• stewers (a large laying hen up to 1½ years old).

Although stewing hens are tougher, better for braises, there’s little difference between a fryer and a roaster (besides weight and age), given modern feeding practices.

In the end, follow these four rules when you’re at the market:

1. Choose chicken by weight, buying what the recipe requires.

2. Look for supple skin with a pale pink cast, neither leathery nor spongy.

3. Check the expiration date and note whether it is a “sell by” or a “use by” date. There is no government standard or requirement for dating poultry. All dating is voluntary, done without third-party supervision.

4. Rely on your sense of smell. A fresh chicken should have almost no odor - if any, it should be bright, a little bracing and fresh, not sulfurous or metallic.

Some processed chickens are injected with a saline solution in a chicken broth base. Read all labels carefully. While juiced birds are more succulent for the grill, they have higher sodium content and are prebrined, like kosher birds. Reduce the salt in the recipe - you can add more at the table.

One final note. Contrary to common lore, the pink liquid in the package is not blood. It’s water absorbed during the initial chilling process, tinted by residual hemoglobin in the meat. All blood is removed during processing; only a little remains at the joints. Blood in the meat rendersa processed chicken unfit for human consumption by U.S. law.

Buying poultry and game birds. Most poultry is available year-round.Choose a large bird for a more developed flavor and a better ratio of meat to bone.The meat should look plump rather than bony and the skin should have no dry patches.With game birds there is quite a difference between young and old.Young birds are tender and suit roasting, whereas older specimens are tougher and need to be braised.A good game bird will be plump and heavy relative to its size.In Europe, game birds are seasonal.The first grouse appears in August (on “The Glorious Twelfth”),and the majority of game birds follow in late September and October.Of course, it is possible to farm some birds all year round,as is done in North America, so the definition of what constitutes a game bird has changed.Wild birds are more strongly flavored than their farmed counterparts and may have a tougher texture.