Supper of the blue chicken

It was Friday, April 19. Traffic in Seattle seemed to be horrible in sympathy for the shut down streets of Boston.

Friends were meeting me at a Costco parking lot to give me an unwanted rooster to butcher.

I waited in my car, listening to endless radio chatter about what a sweetie pie this Dzhokhar Tzarnaev was supposed to be. Part of me was indignant. Fine, he was popular, but let's give this a rest, folks. If he really did plant a bomb next to an eight year old, we might want to revise our assessment here.

Another part was internalizing it. When I received the rooster, I was surprised to feel deeply conflicted in a way I had not felt before. "Oh, no." I thought "He's adorable. So cute. Every mother hen's dream for her little rooster. This can't be right." And indeed, the rooster was white and fluffy and proud and very handsome. Well - roosters are almost all handsome. Ask any rooster, he'll agree.

One theory why so many species of birds have attractive males is their beauty reflects good health. Hens prefer mates in tip top condition. They choose ones with perfect, glossy plumage and lots of it.

At any rate, one of the hard things about eating roosters is it seems wrong to destroy such a lovely creature - like vandalism almost. But that's objectifying a rooster and looking away from the real reason it should be hard. Taking a life, even for food, even humanely, shouldn't be easy or fun.

A rooster's looks don't always help him to a happy life and often get him in trouble. The more conspicuous, the more other roosters want to fight with them. The more predators try to eat them. This white rooster would be like a beacon to every hawk in North Burien. 

Before I butchered this little rooster, I had to take a long pause and sort this all out. I had to get distanced from the news, from the senselessness of it all, and my self pity at having to do this. Poor me? Poor bird, more like. Make this as dignified as you can, Sarah.

After a pause, I did. I held him until he relaxed, and then let him go. Then I began to pluck the roo. That's when I got my other surprise.

         Some chicken breeds are blue. 

Not their feathers, their skin. Their muscles. Blue. Really dark, gunmetal blue skin over lavender meat. With violet bones. 

I don't know why this shocked me so much but it did. I was worried my kid would freak about eating a blue chicken. But he thought it was cool and told me I was being silly. Still hedging, I put the rooster in the freezer for a couple of weeks while I figured out how to cook him.

It turns out yes, all silkies, regardless of feather color, are blue underneath. They are prized in Chinese medicine as an ingredient in a healing soup. Most accounts said they taste like chicken (no surprise) but are tough and stringy.

I don't like chicken soup. More specifically I can't even bring myself to eat it. I don't like how all the flavor leaves the chicken and goes into the water. I don't like the smell of boiled skin. The first time I cleaned a wound on one of my hens, her wet, plucked skin smelled like chicken soup.

So although I wanted to respect the culinary tradition, I decided I'd rather respect the chicken by cooking him in a way I would enjoy. And to celebrate the beauty of roosters, I decided to make a colorful meal.

I roasted the bird, and served him with homemade saffron egg noodles, rainbow chard and a dessert tart of meringue and strawberries. Only the tart was as colorful as we had hoped. The chicken, the chard and the noodles all lost their crayon-like vibrancy with cooking.

But Oh Dear Lord was that chicken delicious. I've been cooking and eating meat for the past year, and this is the first time I think I got it right. This chicken was tender as springtime and intensely flavorful.

I did well.

Recipes

Slow Roasted Free Range Silkie

1 silkie or other small, stringy chicken
2 quarts water or whey + 1/2 cup water divided (I used whey from draining Greek yogurt)
1/4 cup salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 sprig each - rosemary, sage
1 tsp butter

At least 24 hours in advance, prepare the brine by stirring the salt and the sugar into the whey or water.

Place the chicken in the brine - it should be covered. Weigh it down so the chicken is fully submerged.



5 hours before dinner, drain the chicken and discard the brine.

Preheat oven to 225

Dry the chicken well and rub skin with butter. For a free range chicken, use a lot of butter.

Place the herbs in the bird's cavity, and truss the legs and wings tight to the body.

Place the chicken on a rack in a roasting pan or dutch oven with a tight fitting lid.

Pour 1/4 cup water into the pan. Cover tightly and roast for 4 hours or till temperature reads 160 by the leg bone..

Remove lid and pour in 1/4 cup water if pan is dry.

Turn oven to 450. Roast for 15 minutes or until skin is crisp.

Remove pan from oven. Place chicken on a platter to rest, and set pan on stove. Don't clean that pan yet!

Saffron pasta ribbons

2 Cups flour
4 large egg yolks
1/2 t + 1t salt, divided
Boiling water
pinch saffron threads
1 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Snipped fresh rosemary to taste

Place saffron in a heat resistant bowl and pour 1/4 cup boiling water over. Let cool to room temperature.

Place flour and salt in food processor and pulse to combine.

Add egg yolks and water. Mix. It should form lots of small, granular lumps of stiff, tacky dough. When squeezed, dough should form a lump.

If it crumbles, add more water by the tablespoon, mixing well between additions, until it stays together when squeezed.

If the dough is even remotely sticky, add flour the same way - 1 T at a time, mixing between additions until it is non-sticky.

Briefly knead dough.

Using a pasta roller, and working in batches, roll out dough on setting 1. Fold and roll until it becomes very smooth and supple. The dough should be completely non-sticky.

Adjust setting to 2, and roll dough again. Continue to setting 5 or 6.

Then use the wide noodle setting to cut dough into strips.

Let noodles dry briefly (I hang them on plastic coat hangers).

Bring to boil a large pot of water. Add 1 t salt. Add noodles, a handful at a time, stirring constantly to prevent sticking.

After the last noodles go in, cook for five minutes.

Drain.

Place noodles, still damp, in the pan the chicken cooked in. Pour on olive oil and snipped rosemary.

Toss pasta so it picks up cooking flavors from the chicken.

Place in bowl and set chicken pieces over.

Meringue Tart with strawberries

4 egg whites
1 cup fine white sugar + extra to sprinkle
1 t vanilla
strawberries

Set oven to 275. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place a plate on the paper and trace a circle.

Place egg whites in a very clean mixing bowl, and beat with a very clean whisk at the highest mixer setting.

When whites form a foam, add vanilla and mix.

When foam begins to thicken, start adding sugar 1 T at a time.

Between each tablespoon, mix until the sugar is completely gone.

The foam will thicken, turn white, and expand.

Beat until the foam holds its shape when you stop the mixer and pull out the beater.

Scoop out the foam and form a circle on the paper.

I piped a bit of foam around the edge to form a rim

Bake for 1 1/2 hours. Then turn off oven and open oven door.

Remove the meringue after it has cooled, such as an hour later.

Transfer fully cooled meringue to serving plate.

Just before serving, fill with sliced strawberries, sprinkle with sugar and garnish as you choose.

This dish is very pretty but we found it too sweet.

Noah ate the chicken to the bones. 

Shared on: mondays-homestead-barn-hop-110 ; gastronomicalsovereignty.com ;frugal days sustainable ways 71; 87th-wildcrafting-wednesday, HomeAcre blog hop, simple-lives-thursday-146

Making Miso

Miso making supplies

 Quite Simply, I love Miso!

Anyone who knows me will eventually have to endure my obsession with miso.

I eat a simple version of miso soup for breakfast - miso stirred into nearly boiling water. I fancy it up with vegetables, rice, tofu, sea veggies, eggs, or anything else around. I make gravy out of it, or mix it with tomato juice for a refreshing but weird beverage.

It was only a matter of time before some strange mental compulsion led me to make my own. I reasoned, falsely, that it would save money. Or that it would be healthier than the miso I can buy. At least I can buy soy beans that say they are GMO free.

Since I had never made miso before, I didn't have very high expectations. In my experience, it takes a little practice to learn new fermentation projects, even if you think you're doing everything right. In this case, round one was a clear failure.

Miso Fail

My first miso attempt. I began it in March 2012, opened it Feb 2013.

The surface of the aged miso was coated with white, powdery looking mold, which was easily skimmed off. All the books mentioned mold like it was no big deal, so I didn't let that scare me.


I had opted for 'chunky'.Ugh. The very word should have warned me.I found the texture of cold, salty, fermented whole soy beans repulsive.  In future I will thoroughly mash the beans.

Far worse, the miso was rendered inedible by a strong aroma and taste of nail polish. This means it fermented wrong and produced acetone. It fermented badly. It can't be fixed.

I used precisely the proportion of ingredients specified, so it must have been my production methods that led to failure. I think I either let in too much oxygen or didn't press the solids down firmly enough.

Miso's byproduct is tamari (as in soy sauce) which is supposed to float to the surface.In my batch, it didn't, instead remaining mixed in with the miso. I think it was the failure of the tamari to separate that killed the miso, diluting its saltiness and causing a bad fermentation.

Plus, I have to be honest, it tasted like cheap soy sauce you might buy once and make a mental note not to get it next time.

But it's all mine! I was excited to have produced some kind of useful product from this whole fiasco.

Starting Over

When I made the first batch, I used a food grade white plastic bucket. This time I have an actual fermenting crock, which should make a more airtight seal, as well as allowing me to weigh down the miso better.

Hallelujah. I love this fermenting crock!

I was understandably shy of my second try at miso. Before I started, I wanted a quick success, so I made a batch of Amazaki.This is a sweet, mildly fermented rice beverage that turns out to be drop dead easy.I cooked some rice, cooled it to the warm end of lukewarm, mixed in the Koji starter that is also used in miso, and put it in a warm oven overnight. By morning it was so sweet, my husband thought I'd added honey. It will be good mixed 1:4 with our oatmeal instead of honey or sugar. I might see if I can make oat Amazaki, which would be delicious.

With a clear win under my belt, it was time to make some miso. The Koji came with instructions, which I am following. I recommend reading through The Book of Miso by Shurtleff and Aoyagi, for much more in depth information.But in some ways they gave so much information a first time user can get paralysed by it, so a one sheet recipe was helpful.

I increased the recipe because you are supposed to make multiple batches and combine them.I cooked and mixed them all at once, in my giant pressure cooker. Hopefully this won't be a problem.

Unsoaked soy beans are almost spherical

Soaked beans, look like any other bean

First I soaked 8 cups of soy beans overnight.

I discarded the soaking water and the huge quantity of hulls that floated off the beans.

I cooked the beans in a pressure cooker for 20 minutes. I assembled the cooker wrong so it did not raise its pressure. After 20 minutes of trying I gave up and simply cooked the beans the old fashioned way, boiling them for 4 hours until they could be, in the fine words to the Book, "crushed easily between the tips of the thumb and the ring finger".

A small sampling of my gigantic hull collection

Once I the beans were done and slightly cooled, I removed yet more hulls. The hulls were endless.Whenever I thought I was done - presto - more!

I then cooled the beans to 110 degrees, pulverized them and mixed them with 6 cups of their cooking liquid,  koji, and salt. 2 1/2 cups of salt. I made the mistake of tasting the mixture last time and it was salty enough to give me an upset tummy and cause a temporary weight gain. At the time I described the recipe as using enough salt to "kill an elephant". To each 2 cups of beans, I also added 1 1/2 T of "seed" miso.

I then salted the inside of my crock, packed it with the miso-ingredients, covered it with more salt, and sealed it under a sheet of plastic wrap. On top of that were the weights and then the lid with its water seal. No air could get through all those layers, I hoped.




 

Is it worth trying again?

Salt - the not so secret miso ingredient

The time and resources invested were pretty minimal. Prep time was a couple of hours. The aging time was long (I left it for nine months) but aside from checking on it, there was no work involved in that part. Both salt and soybeans, even certified GMO free, are cheap. The bucket was free. The new crock was expensive but I will use it in other projects too.

If this second batch is a success I will continue making miso. If it fails, I admit I will be discouraged. We'll know next spring.

I find I don't particularly mind initial failure. Failure can help me assess how important something is to me. If I want to succeed, I don't begrudge the time, thought and energy to do a postmortem, recheck my equipment and try again. If I feel like quitting, it's likely this wasn't that important to begin with.

I'm not thrilled with trying to dispose of half a gallon of stinky miso, either into the waste bin or into myself, but if I can learn to make a good product in a couple of tries I'll have a lifetime of useful miso in exchange for a few questionable batches. My only real reservation is there's no way to make a small "test" batch, so whatever results I get, I'll have a lot of them.



Oh well. As the old riddle goes:

Q: Which is better, good food, or bad food?

Answer: Bad food. Because bad food is still better than nothing. And nothing is better than good food.

Inspiring, isn't it?

Although in this case, the round one miso may be worse than nothing.

Shared on: homestead barn hop

Goat milking pump

Meggie - before milking

I enjoy the morning and night task of milking. It's always given me a special time with one animal; time to thank her for her abundance and for giving to us.

Meggie in particular is so undemanding. The other goats and the chickens vie for attention; milking is the one time of day she gets my undivided focus.

She is eating, which usually makes goats happy, but she seems to also relish the time spent together.

She is actually more OK with me milking  she was with her own babies after a certain age.

When I milk I do everything I can to keep myself and the goat calm, focused and happy.

I pat the goat, feed her, sing to her, and listen to her tummy gurgle contentedly as I milk.

Doesn't this look more comfortable?

Regardless of how they feel about being milked, it's got to be a relief to a goat to go from a full udder to an empty one. There can be well over a half gallon of milk in there! The pressure and weight are considerable. The goats always walk away from the milk stand lighter and happier.

But my tendons are another matter. After six years of milking , my wrists started to hurt.

I couldn't squeeze water out of a sponge without excruciating pain. My friend Mellow gave me some exercises to help, but I knew the real answer was to give myself a break from the repetitive motion.









When we saw a DIY milker featuring a vacuum pump designed for brake bleeding, we knew we had to try one ourselves. This is a manually powered pump, so I wasn't sure it would reduce the stress on my arms, but if I didn't try it, I was in danger of becoming totally unable to use my hands. So, we got the parts and made one. Here Noah tries it out (with soapy water and food coloring).

Noah pumping soap/food coloring to learn how it works

It was pretty simple. Everything was off the shelf except for the lid to the mason jar, which we had to modify.

Basically, the vacuum pump is connected by a 3/8" tube to the lid of a jar. A second tube connects to a pair of "teat cups", AKA two 60 cc syringes, which fit over Meggie's teats and form an airtight seal. The tubing is connected with aquarium airline connectors.

Milker setup


I was excited to try this system, but I found myself putting it off day after day. Which anyone who knows me will say is odd. Usually I'm someone who can't wait to try a new contraption.

I was having a hard time accepting that this less 'natural' system would be as gentle as my hand milking. Part of me was sure the syringes would either hurt Meggie, or suck her entire udder into them. Or at least, that she would resent me for using a machine for such a personal thing as drawing her milk.

You're squeezing our teats with a what?!?

Neither one happened.With some trepidation, I sprayed teat cleaner on Meggie's udder, wiped her clean, and set up the contraption.

 I placed the cups on her teats, awkwardly holding them in place, and pumped the suction up to 10.


The teat only was pulled into the syringe until it formed an airtight seal, but no further. It appeared perfectly comfortable.







                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Meggie went on eating serenely as her milk began to draw down the tubing and into the jar. First a trickle, then a steady stream.

I have said it before.Meggie is the ideal goat. She is productive, calm, cooperative and gentle. I call her bomb proof. But I had expected some kind of reaction to having plastic cups suctioned onto her udder.

Nope. Nada. Nil. She just kept calm and carried on.






I don't think the phrase "kick the bucket" was coined to mean "to die" by accident. After hand milking an animal and having her spill, kick, step in or poop in her milk, a person might be ready to do something extreme.

But in our case, it's surely not Meggie's fault. Meggie's legs occasionally cramp from standing still, and she picks her feet up. Once in a while, she used to put them in the bucket of milk, ruining it. 

With the milking device, this will be a thing of the past. nothing to kick over!

 Another advantage to a milking device like this is, the milk never touches anything but the inside of the tubing and the jar. A barn, no matter what, is a barn. Spiders, straw, goat hair, flies in summer, dust, and you can imagine other things all end up there. Hand milking controls as much of the mess as possible, but the milker gives much more assurance that the milk will be clean. I love that. Even more, I love that once its going, I can step away from the milking process, at least long enough to get a picture of my happy, busily eating goat.
 

Then I bring the milk inside and put a new lid on the jar. I put the jar in an ice bath, clean the milker, and voila. Another batch of milk. A milker would be especially nice for anyone with a goat who had funny sized teats, or for anyone who, like me, found her hands getting tired from milking. So far, the repetitive movement of pumping the milker has been just fine. And the milk is splendid.

Shared on: homestead barn hop, backyard farming connection hop , farm girl friday, frugal days, sustainable ways , simple lives thursday,wildcrafting wednesday

Halloumi - the real story

I think it's time I tell the real story of how the halloumi in my last blog post was made.

Step one - I woke up about half an hour later than usual, on my day off, planning to make cheese. "Should take about three hours start to finish". Did morning barn chores and made sure I had all the ingredients.

Made the kid breakfast. Started to make a cup of coffee. Good thing I didn't get far.

Phone alarm - oh, yeah, fasting blood test day. Starting with a cholesterol test seems like a bad omen for cheese making but what the heck. I hurry off to the lab.

Severe caffeine withdrawal. Fasting blood tests always do this to me. One hour coffee break.




Phone alarm goes off - oh, yeah, I was going to help recharter the scout pack today. Two hour meeting. Meet three great dogs, a parrot and the fabulous woman who cares for them and who wants to do a lot of paperwork to help scouts! Bless her heart. Rechartering is well in hand.

I return home and eat the last of the homemade crusty bread. You are not supposed to start bread and make cheese on the same day but I sometimes do anyway. This is a day when I do. The kitchen is warm, and I open the back door.

Meggie, the goat, who is normally very calm, is all of a sudden very loud. I go back to check. She's in heat! She's looking around for a male goat, and freaking out because there aren't any. She is so needy. Lightning is not in heat, but she's needy too.

Meggie and Lightening hoping for some attention

I tear myself away from the needy goats and go inside. Start to warm up milk. It is now 11:30. Check facebook. Oh, everyone is all worked up about some election thing. Get involved. Milk is over-warm. Add a little cool milk and hope that's an OK strategy.

Add calcium chloride and rennet. Eat lunch while the cheese sets. Cut curd right after lunch. Stir. Phone call from work. There are just one or two things I have to do today - they just won't wait till two days from now when I'm back in the office.

Meggie won't stop crying. I go out and check on her. She's fine.


Oh, my the ducks are cute.


Pikachu, the new drake, is such a sweety.

Their water is filthy. Gross. I throw it out and clean all the bowls. Actually, every one's food dish is overdue for a scrub. I gather them all and bring them inside.


The curds have sat at least fifteen minutes too long. I hope this is OK. It's actually going to be closer to thirty minutes too long because I need to clean up after being out in the duck mess.

It is close to two. The kid gets home from school; Fridays are early release day. He is making a costume for Halloween. He says he won't need any help.

I put the curds in a bag to press. Get a weight and - the phone rings, and the name that flashes up is my uncle. He never calls. OMG, maybe someone died!!! No - it's a planning call for a family event. In the long gaps between phone calls, I always forget what a kind gentleman my uncle is. So considerate and mannered. Always fun to chat with. Meanwhile, the curd is sitting there. This is probably not a problem.

Actually, my kid does need help with his costume. He accidentally glued the wrong side of everything. We become a gluey mess. Luckily, I know how to get glue off my hands. You rub them in dirt and it peels right off. Then of course you wash.

I return and put weight on the curd. I decide (randomly) to season all my cast iron, since I happen to be in the kitchen anyway. Heat up all my iron pans. The weight falls off the cheese, about half the whey is spilled on the counter and floor.

Kid needs help with his costume. This time he wants to paint the body and needs help turning the basement into a painting studio.

I clean up the floor. Take out iron pan to oil. Burn hand. I shape the bread loaves, since the oven's already hot.

It is now five o'clock. I check the recipe. I had somehow thought the cheese took a total of 45 minutes press time. Wrong. 6 hours. I realize I will be up till midnight at best.

There is a Halloween party at the school in one hour. The costume is not ready. Briefly we debate whether it can be painted and dry - which is patently ridiculous, but in light of my inability to self-schedule, I am cutting my kid a lot of slack in his own plan-making. We mutually decide not to paint it. It is too late to bake the bread. I turn off the oven and we run out the door.

I preemptively decide the cheese can press for two hours before the event and four hours after we come home, instead of three and three.

It's a great party. I was signed up to run the bouncy house from 6:15 to 7:30 but when I got there, they switched me to 7:30 - 8:30. I lose my voice. We have fun. A guy who lives in the neighborhood has his driveway blocked in by an inconsiderate parent. While we wait for them to move their car, we chat and i get to know another member of my community. A plane flies low over the dark, misty parking lot as we head home. It's later than I expected.

I need to learn how to take nigh time pictures! This was pretty cool in real life.

We come home and I flip cheese, replace weight and go take care of the animals. Eat dinner. It is now a bit after ten. Put kid to bed. Reshape the forgotten bread dough and heat the oven. Sometimes bread is OK when you do this. Ask me how I know.


I can't decide whether to nap or stay up while the cheese poaches for an hour and then cools for 45 minutes before being brined. But if I nap, I will forget to take the bread out and that will definitely ruin it.

I decide to stay up and write blog where I totally fake this ideal cheese making experience. It isn't totally fake because I have made halloumi before and had it go as smoothly as all that. Seriously, there have been times. But today was not one of them. And as I was writing, David said something about a very famous athlete who lied about steroid use, and I heard myself say "Well, there had to be a moment when he knew he had used steroids, and he knew he was lying. And that's wrong".

Then I knew I had to sit down and write a retraction of the "oh, I'm such a perfect urban farmer, here's this epic cheese making day I just had in my perfectly coordinated home" story. I did have a great day, and in a very fragmented way, I accomplished quite a bit. But it was not idyllic, it was real. And, to spare you any undue distress, let me add that the halloumi actually turned out great. That is the real reason it's my favorite cheese. It is very forgiving. It seems to know about days that get out of hand.

Shared on : cheesepalooza, Simple Lives Thursday