WARNING TO VEGETARIANS AND OTHERWISE SENSITIVE PEOPLE.
We had our first chicken harvest this week. 5 months back we added a few Rhode Island Reds to our flock with the intention of making little baby chicks for meat but they never laid eggs. As well, our nickname for them was “the lazy ones” as theydid not eat many bugs and they were not favored by the others. However, Paco the rooster liked them. Sorry Paco….you just need to make due with the rest as we needed chicken for Super Bowl Sunday.
Monica, Ana’s neice, made the kill while we assisted. I was not as freaked out as I thought I would be but Ana took it a little hard. I will not go into details but rather inform you on how to deal with older chickens when cooking. The French tend to favor older ones for the better flavor and recommend cutting them up and soaking in a brine mixture for at least 24 hours in the fridge before cooking for several hours in order to soften the meat. We chose a brine mixture of 1 cup salt to 1 gallon of water. If I had a bottle of red wine I would have used it but unfortunately wine is tough to come by in these parts.
Friday soak over night in brine
Saturday, rinse well and cook for 3 to 4 hours
Sunday morning cook again for a few hours and flavor, then serve
Oconahua 
Wine is hard to get?? Oh NO! Sounds like you need to make your own. I made a few batches back in the day and it isn’t difficult; it was kind of fun! Should I start saving bottles for you??
Haha…I should have written good wine is hard to get. Thanks for thinking of us and actually we are venturing into Guadalajara next week to fine wine and beer making supplies and we still have several bottles left from our tequila bottling. Tips and suggestions to make it taste good are appreciated!
Have you ever tired bone broth? Making it from the chicken bones. It’s awesome for health, especially when ones sick. Super nutritious. Homegrown chickens is so much better for you than store bought. Chicken is so expensive and if you want an organically grown one…well be ready to shell out at least 15 bucks!
I know, right?!!! The price of a plain old chemical filled chicken in this area is between $10 – $15 and trust me, folks do not make much for a basic salary. Crazy. I have made broth with the whole chicken and will look up this elixer you describe, thanks!
You can use a crock pot or a Dutch oven anyway take chicken bones and basically you slow cook for up to around 24 hours. What you will get is all the nutrients from the bones disintegrating into the broth. It’s highly nutritious. Super food for health and especially when sick. You can add veggies to this for seasonings or just drink it straight.
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