Viewing entries tagged

Chickens:  Spatchcock 101


Chickens: Spatchcock 101

After a couple years hiatus from raising birds, we are back in the game and the first batch look amazing. We have done more general posts regarding chicken in the past , even one regarding the value and inputs of chicken (18.00 Chicken). This post will be focused entirely on the method of spatchcocking, a method of preparation of a whole chicken that enables you to cook a whole bird more evenly and in a shorter amount of time, 45 minutes or less in most cases.

When you prepare your bird in this way, you are essentially flattening out the bird to expose the legs to a higher heat. This is exactly what you want, as the legs will cook slightly faster than the breasts, allowing them to get up to the 165 range, while the breasts reach only about 135 - 140, resulting in juicy meat and crispier skin all the way around.


Before we begin cutting the bird— the secret to crispy skin begins 12 - 24 hours beforehand with pre-salting. Pre-salting a chicken allows the salt to penetrate entirely through the bird, ensuring that all your meat is evenly seasoned. It is worth noting, if you are going to add additional spices to the outside of the chicken, we generally just add it at the end, when we remove the bird from the fridge to come back up to room temperature before cooking. The reason for this is that salt is the only part of the seasoning rub that can truly move through the muscle of a bird, or any meat for that matter. Other spices do not penetrate more than the surface, if at all, though critically important to the flavor of your dish and meat.

In addition to evenly seasoning the meat, pre-salting also draws excess moisture out of the skin. This is exactly what you need and want for delicious, crispy skin. As you cook the bird, you’ll see it turn an enviable golden brown with an unmistakable crackle. You can thank us later.

The biggest question we get is when sharing the pre-salting step is, “ How much salt? “. The short answer, “More than you think. “. As you can see below , there is a generous amount of salt, rubbed into the bird and sprinkled into the cavity. After you pre-salt the bird, place it on a sheet pan with a rack so that the back skin doesn’t get soggy as the moisture is pulled out. Pre-salting can be done before or after the spatchcock step, but because we are limited on fridge, I salted the bird whole and broke it down before cooking, which you’ll see below.

I salted this whole, not yet cut, to save space in the fridge. If you have the space, you can split it before salting.


Preparing The Bird

There are several ways to prepare a bird for spatchcock (most are quite similar), but this is our preferred method. You’ll simply need a pair of kitchen shears and a cutting board.

  1. Place the bird breast side down on the cutting board.

  2. Locate the spine of the bird and cut just to the right or left of the spine. You are separating the spine from the ribcage so that you can flatten the bird in step three. Here, some people cut down the other side of the back, removing the entire spine, using it to make stock or a sauce. It all depends on what we are making, whether we remove it. Below we just do a single side.

  3. Place your palms on both sides of cut and press outward spreading the bird until it’s flat. You may have to press harder on the wing joint.

And there you have it, 3 easy steps and your bird is ready to cook. Don’t worry if it’s not perfect the first few times. It’ll still taste great, and you can keep practicing until you get it right.


We grilled our spatchcocked bird, but you can just as easily cook it in the oven. You would cook it breast side up the whole time at 450 degrees for approximately 40 minutes. You’re looking for the bird to reach around 140 at the coolest part of the breast, and 165 in the thigh. Check at 20 minutes, and then every 10 thereafter, to make sure you’re not burning the skin or overcooking the bird. If you don’t have one yet, stop what you’re doing right now and buy a good meat thermometer! Do it!

If you are cooking in an oven, we suggest cooking on a rack that will allow you to catch the fat that renders out of the bird as it cooks. These are not your supermarket birds and as you can see below, they are filled with bright yellow fat from all of the grass they consume and the local organic grain they eat. This is called schmaltz, or rendered chicken fat. That’s another post, though. The gist is, save it and use it to roast vegetables in, especially thinly sliced potatoes or potato pancakes.


If grilling, your charcoal should be nicely ashed over so that you don’t have hot and cold spots. With the grill ready to go, we place the bird, breast side down over a medium heat. We want the breast to cook quickly at the top and begin to crisp the skin. We do not want the skin to burn, however, just crisp.

After your skin is slightly crisped, flip the bird over and cook skin side up. If you have a lid for your grill, close it and cook until the bird reaches the temperature of 140 in the coldest part of the breast and 165 in the thickest part of the thigh. Depending on your temperature, this should take approximately 35 - 40 minutes, assuming you’re running at a temperature of 450 degrees.

If you are grilling without a lid, and just on an open grate, you will still cook most of the way skin side up, but you’ll be finishing your bird skin side down for the last 5 minutes for a final crisp. The time will vary based on the hotness of your coals and distance to the grill surface, but the temperatures above are what you are shooting for. For more detailed cooking instructions for over coals, check out Kenji’s article here.


When your bird has come to fully cooked temperature, rest the bird for approximately 10 - 15 minutes. You want all of those juices and fats to redistribute throughout the meat. If you don’t wait, the juices run back out and what makes the birds so juicy is lost. From this point forward, slice and enjoy how you wish. Just don’t forget to save the bones to use for the best chicken stock you’ll ever have! Throw them in a labeled ziplock freezer bag for a rainy day.



Lesser Steaks are Excellent Steaks

1 Comment

Lesser Steaks are Excellent Steaks

For those that are already customers or readers of our posts, you are likely aware of the passion we have for the "lesser cuts." From shanks, hocks and offal to lesser-used roasts and steaks, when you're talking Whole Animal you have to talk about the "good, the bad and the ugly."  Let there be no confusion... all parts are good, even the odd bits, but some take more preparation than others. There are two steaks we typically get back that seem to consistently give people a bit of trouble: Sizzler Steaks and Sirloin Steaks.

Beef Chart

Beef Chart

Sirloin Steak

The sirloin steak is a bit difficult to identify if you're not talking specifically to your butcher. For instance, what we have cut as sirloin steaks are also known as culotte steaks, which are highly coveted by butchers and those "in the know", however sirloin steaks may also come off of the top sirloin or the bottom sirloin. Depending on schools of thought and training, it could be any one of those areas on a cow, and the textures are very different. For the purposes of this post, let us talk about what you'd get from us, which is the Culotte Sirloin Steak. 

The culotte sirloin steak comes from the sirloin cap, which, as described by the US Beef Council is as follows:

" Boneless steak made by slicing the Coulotte (Sirloin Cap) at a right angle to the grain or direction of the muscle fibers. Because this Sirloin Cap is removed during the fabrication of the Top Butt Boneless, the opportunity to cut across the grain is gained, maximizing tenderness."

This area of the steer get lots of movement and thus has bold, irony flavor. By that I don't mean irony like liver, I mean rich and minerally like you'd like your steak to be (presumably). As such, you want to cook it quick, hot and rare... mid-rare at most. For our dinner last night, we cooked on a screaming-hot grill, for about 2-3 minutes per side, moving frequently, to ensure that all of the meat is crusted and cooked evenly. The old wives tale about throwing a steak on the grill and leaving it to sit, only to flip once, should be reserved for burgers. Steaks, however, do best moved around to maximize the char and crust on the outside. Now that I think of it, I may have to do a post just on cooking methods. Stay tuned for that. We cooked until about 130 degrees, counting on a 3 - 5 degree carryover when we removed to rest. This was dressed with simple salt and pepper, about 30 - 45 minutes prior to cooking, allowing a nice penetration of salt and drying the surface of the meat to achieve a better crust. We removed our steaks from the refrigerator approximately 20 minutes prior to cooking to allow them to come to room temperature, again, helping to ensure even cooking. After resting for about 10 minutes, the steak is cut across the grain, shortening the muscle fibers and increasing tenderness, resulting in a fantastic and economical steak.


Screaming Hot Grill

Sizzler Steak

Now, the sizzler steak. This is a steak that we probably hear the most feedback on by people stumped on how to cook it and still remain tender. I decided to do some testing with cooking methods and now feel I have a good handle on how to get there and what people are describing as tough.

First, it's important to consider where this steak comes from. This holds true for all steaks, as knowing where they are from will tell you how much activity it gets (flavor increase, but toughness increase) as well as what you can expect from tendons and sinew. The sizzler steak comes from the bottom sirloin, right at the hip. If you remember from earlier, this is what's tricky about large muscle groups like the "sirloin", as it with one mislabel from your meat counter can easily change how you cook it, cut it and prepare it. Referring the chart above, you can see it comes from the bottom sirloin, below the top sirloin (duh) and is much further down on the animal's hindquarter. Its proximity to the hip means it's getting worked quite a bit, but will also have a big tendon running through it. This, in my opinion after testing, is likely where the issue with "toughness" comes in. The meat alongside this tendon is incredibly rich and flavorful, but no matter how you cook it, that tendon is always going to be tough. This is why when you look up cooking methods, they always suggest some sort of acid in the marinade, to help break down the meat and tenderize it. Problem is, it won't tenderize the tendon and you're still going to likely not enjoy the cut itself. We tried this method to test the most common suggested methods and didn't particularly enjoy it. It made the texture of the meat quite mealy and the vinegar flavor seemed overpowering. So, what to do?

Our suggestion: remove the tendon before or after cooking. We did the latter, cooking much the same way as described above for the sirloin, and then slicing across the grain once again. This steak is great when cooked and presented properly, but it immediately became evident that the tendon is what's throwing people off. Simply remove it and you'll be good to go.

Remove Tendon

These economical steaks are great options for the summer time grill and shouldn't be overlooked. They also shouldn't be relegated to overcooked fajitas, but rather deserve their place at the table just like the rest of the steak family. Next time you are out at the farm, consider picking one up and trying these different techniques and I assure you it'll change your mind.  [Editor's note... we might be sold out now, but we still have other good options!]

1 Comment

Silkie Chickens & How To Cook Them


Silkie Chickens & How To Cook Them

You read that right, how to cook Silkie chickens. While not traditionally a prized bird to eat here in the States, in Asia it's a delicacy that can be found throughout the likes of China, Vietnam and Thailand to name a few.  In the States, Silkies are kept as novelties [really they look like cotton balls with beaks], or as docile roosters, or hens known for their broody qualities.

This is traditionally a Chinese dish, with the chicken being coveted for its health benefits. It is rich in amino acids, vitamin B and protein [like any pastured animal turned into soup, but hey, ancient medicine amirite?]. It's most often found being distributed by street food vendors to locals, as well as the open-minded food driven tourists. It's sold in some Asian markets here in America and can be found throughout Asia for purchase fresh or in soup form.

© Creative Commons License

© Creative Commons License

The first thing you'll notice, undoubtably, is that the flesh, meat and bones are all a deep purple color, almost black after cooking. You'll also notice that these chickens are considerably smaller than the supermarket chickens we've all come to know commercially. It's for these reasons that Silkies make the perfect soup bird. The soup you'll be making is simple, in that there are no fancy techniques or special cutting. Even the ingredients are pretty easy to find, while you may have to do a little searching around your local Asian market. The end result, however, is far from simple. It's a rich, uniquely flavorful and unctuous dish glistening with chicken fat on the top and bright, fresh vegetables throughout. The colors set against the bold color of the chicken and you have something you, your family and most of your friends have likely never seen before. We're excited to be kicking off the 2017 CSA season with this offering and are excited to see pictures of what everyone makes.

Grace Fong’s Silkie Chicken Soup

© Lucky Peach

© Lucky Peach




All Things Chicken


All Things Chicken

So many folks have been waiting for chickens in the share, and this is the month! For those that are new to the CSA or to our poultry principles, we raise a few different kinds of birds that vary greatly by size and meat "color". We raise both the traditional "modern" style of chickens (Cornish cross), and more heritage-style birds. Cornish are the breast-heavy birds that grow fast, but have a much lighter-colored meat and more sweet flavor. The others, of varying breeds, have smaller breast sizes but do cook more evenly and have a larger amount of dark meat across the entire carcass. While both birds are tasty in their own right, they are quite different from each other.  Chickens, typically considered a boring bird and a vehicle for other flavors, have a significant amount of flavor when raised on pasture and with the high quality feed, as is our method of raising. The cooked meat often tends to be closer to pink, or even red, while also containing a high amount of yellow fat produced by the copious amounts of forage they consume. We wanted to cover both the various methods of cooking the birds, as well as the various methods that can be used to extend the harvest beyond a single meal.

Dry Brining

First, let's talk about how we get that perfect, crispy skin. One of the key secrets to crispy skin is a generous salting prior to grilling. This process is known as dry brining and is quickly becoming a common cooking prep method amongst all the recipes I'm seeing  around the interwebs. It's simple, effective and most of all, tasty. For my tastes, I generally pre-salt chickens 24-48 hrs before cooking, and 48-72 hrs for turkeys on Thanksgiving. The salt not only dries out the skin significantly, but penetrates throughout the bird for a more thorough salt distribution, i.e. flavor.

Quick and Dirty Guide to Brining


Grilling whole birds can be done one of two ways— trussed or spatchcock. A trussed bird is the standard way in which people have come to think about chickens. Tied up tight, stuffed with herbs and grilled on indirect heat. With this method you can also add a bit of smoke by adding some wood chips to your grill or smoker for added flavor. The perils of this are that you have a hard time keeping the various cuts cooking at the same rate.  Pick your poison with this method, so-to-speak... you can only cook one of them correctly. You'll either end up with perfect breasts and undercooked legs, or well-cooked legs and overcooked breasts. The reason for this is the cavity in the middle of the bird, which changes the rate of heat transfer to the breast area.


Trussing is a controversial topic. Some people feel it's crucial. Some people feel it's unnecessary. I fall somewhere in the middle. I like it for a utilitarian and look purposes. It just flat our looks neat and more traditional, but it also keeps the cavity closed and all the goodness you stuff the cavity well secured in there. With respect to if it makes a difference in cooking, science says no.

Basic Roast Chicken

  1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Sprinkle the chicken inside and out with the salt and pepper and fold the wings akimbo to position them closer to the body. Place the chicken on its side in an oven-safe skillet, preferably cast-iron.
  2. Place the chicken in the skillet in the oven and cook for 20 minutes, then turn the chicken over and cook another 20 minutes. (By cooking the chicken on its sides, the juices stay in the breast and, since only the back is exposed, the chicken does not need constant basting.) Finally, turn the chicken onto its back, baste it with the cooking juices and continue to cook 10 minutes. It should be golden in color.
  3. When the chicken is cooked, cut it into pieces and serve, with the drippings on the side.

Jacque Pepin's Basic Roast Chicken


If the cavity makes things tricky to keep even, how can we just remove that variable and ensure that everything is evenly cooked? Easy! Spatchcock the bird, essentially removing the backbone and flattening the bird so that the heat transfer and cooking times are far more even during cooking. Have no worries, you still get everyone's favorite, crispy, salty and herb-y chicken skin.  Don't be intimated if you have never butchered a chicken before, either.  Practice makes perfect.

© Serious Eats

© Serious Eats


  • 1 large chicken, about 4 to 5 pounds
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
  • 1 medium onion, roughly chopped (about 1 cup)
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 cup dry vermouth or sherry
  • 1 teaspoon soy sauce
  • 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 2 teaspoons juice from 1 lemon


  2. Set wire rack in rimmed baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Position chicken so that breasts are aligned with center of baking sheet and legs are close to edge. Roast until thickest part of breast close to bone registers 150 degrees on an instant-read thermometer and joint between thighs and body registers at least 170°F, about 45 minutes, reducing the heat to 450°F if the chicken starts to darken too quickly.

Butterflied Roasted Chicken with Quick Jus


One of the questions we get quite often is if we sell portioned-out birds. The short answer: No. The reason is simple— it costs an additional 50 cents per lb. straight from our processor to do this, and most people flatly do not want to pay the additional cost, which makes it harder for us to sell the pieced birds.  We also want to encourage people to cook more creatively with their birds. We want them to understand how to utilize the bird most effectively and how to take the bird from one or two meals to three or four. One of the ways to extend the bird's reach is by portioning out yourself, based on the cooking style you and your family prefer. In addition, you'll be able to save the bones, back and necks for stock, which you can add to the other bones after you're done cooking the rest of the bird. More on that later...


Alright, so the bird is done, cooked to a perfect 145-150 degrees internal. You've let it rest. The skin is browned and taut and the smell is taking over the room. Time to eat! Carving the bird is one of the areas that seems to intimidate folks more than most anything else. How do I portion it out? How do I get as much meat as possible? How do I cut it so it works for leftovers? All of those things and more are simple, provided you have 5 - 10 minutes and a nice, sharp knife. In case you can't tell, I'm a big fan of Jacques Pepin and the way in which he handles poultry (and most anything else culinary). In this video, you'll see how to expertly break down a bird after cooking, but also how easy it is with just a little practice.


This is where you make your money back— stock, or as the kids call it these days, "bone broth." Turning what would otherwise be wasted into gold, and additional meals. For us at HSF, we have a few freezer bags going at any given time full of bones, labeled by type. When the bag fills, we then use our remnant vegetables [which can also be frozen in a bag] and make a nice stock to use in a variety of dishes from chicken pot pie to rice, from soup to risotto. The applications are endless and just about any recipe that calls for water use stock instead. Why add water when you can add flavor, right?

One thing to consider about stock is, what kind of stock do you want?  Do you want a clear stock (consommé)? Do you want just a standard hearty stock? How about a white ramen broth? For the purposes of this blog post, lets focus on just a standard broth and maybe in another post we can get into the other kinds of broth/stock. 

Serious Eats - Rich, Flavorful, Easy Chicken Stock


Mutton But Burgers


Mutton But Burgers

With both personal eating habits and the CSA, it's important for us to respect the animals that are part of our food chain. This extends not only to consuming the whole animal, but also the "forgotten harvest" animals. Boars, older cows, old laying hens and, in the case of this month's CSA, mutton.  These particular ewes are Icelandic Sheep from Fence Row Farm in Charlotte.  Icelandic Sheep are known for their delicate flavor, so even older animals don't have the heavy lanolin flavor that turn some people off to sheep meat, whether lamb or mutton.  While you can enjoy mutton in a variety of cuts, today we'll focus on saddle chops and burgers.  

Saddle Chops

Before we get to burgers, I want to touch on our saddle chops. "Saddle chops, what the heck are saddle chops?", you might ask. The best way to explain saddle chops is to think about two lamb chops together [sitting over the back of the animal, like a saddle], instead of split down the middle. With typical chops, you split the carcass in half, down the spine, and remove the chops from the loin on each side. Here, we keep the carcass intact and simply cut down each side of the ribs, so the two sides of the loin are intact across the spine. This provides for not only more meat, but a beautiful presentation that your friends are unlikely to have ever seen before. We had one for dinner last night (product research and development— it's a tough job but someone has to do quality control!) and it exceeded all expectations. We worked with our processor to age these animals for 14 days, which is very atypical for lamb or mutton.  Why did we do that, you ask?  It's common practice for beef [think the scene from Rocky where he's in the meat locker].  It allows for tenderness and flavor development  The results will speak for themselves.

Mutton Saddle Chops with salt, pepper and thyme

  1. Defrost your saddle chop the night before you're going to cook it. Once defrosted, the morning of the day in which you're going to cook it, generously salt both sides of the chop and return to the fridge for the day.

  2. When you're ready to get the grill going, remove the chop from the fridge and let come to room temperature.

  3. Get your grill going and set up in such a way that you can cook with both direct and indirect heat.

  4. Before you place the chop on the grill, rub generously with a fresh bunch of thyme on both sides. Separate the bunch and press so that it sticks on the meat and you can grill with it sticking to the meat.

  5. Once the grill is ready, start the chop on the indirect side of the grill and cook, flipping every 1 - 2 minutes until an internal temp reaches between 110 and 120. Remove from heat and let cool down for about 5 - 10 minutes.

  6. While your meat is coming down in temp, make sure that your direct heat side is screaming hot. Do not remove any sprigs of thyme that have remained stuck to the meat.

  7. When the grill is screaming hot, place the steak on the grill and move frequently over the course of 1 - 2 minutes per side. This will give you full coverage of the surface of the meat. Grill marks are overrated and are lost opportunities for crust and flavor development. Keep flipping and when your chop hits 130 - 135, remove from grill and let rest for 5 - 10 minutes.

  8. Enjoy 

Mutton Burgers

When it comes to making burgers by hand, there are as many methods and opinions as there are ... Well you know how the saying goes.  The following is how we do it at HSF, and we think it works pretty well.  The key to a good burger is an even shape, a light pack and proper cooking. What you don't want to do is mix the ground meat so much that it becomes sticky and paste-like. This is is what you're looking for in sausage making, to ensure a bind of the meat, but for burgers, it's about a light mixing and letting the cooking process help to develop the binding of the meat. This will ensure even cooking and a juicy burger. A great reference for this, and even more specific detail is from Serious Eats:

Click image to view burger shaping tips from  Serious Eats

Click image to view burger shaping tips from Serious Eats

One of the great things about mutton, and lamb for that matter, is the boldness of the flavor. Note that I did not say "gamey." Gamey meat is a result of a poor diet and, to some degree, the breed of the sheep. These mutton are older Icelandic ewes and the flavor is clean, bold and quite frankly, an umami bomb. The aging mentioned above is a great tool to help bring this characteristic out and we couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out.

When you think of flavors to pair with mutton or lamb, except for simply salt and pepper of course, you think of anything from mint to yogurt, from cumin to spicy chilis. The ability of the mutton to hold and support flavor is unparalleled when you're talking about a "red" meat. Recipes are numerous, so I'll spare you the detailing of all them here, but I will provide you with a few flavor combinations and recipes that are a favorite for us:


  • Cumin, coriander and thyme
  • Smoked paprika and fennel
  • Curry and mint
  • Mint, parsley, garlic and lemon zest


  • Grilled or charred onions
  • Tzatziki Sauce
  • Cumin and Yogurt 
  • Mint jelly, chutney or oil
  • Chimichurri
  • Cumin Crust

Cooking Tips

All the spicing and shaping in the world will be for naught if you don't grill or cook the burger correctly.  The best methods for cooking a burger, in our opinion, are with a cast iron pan, broiler or on a charcoal grill. Here are two reference articles from J. Kenji Lopez over at Serious Eats again. In case you haven't picked up on it btw, he's one of my favorite food science guys on the web and I refer to his work a lot.


We'd love to hear how you take these tips and make them your own... let us know in the comments!


It's Officially Autumn


It's Officially Autumn

This week has been a stern reminder that fall is here and winter is just around the corner. You can see your breathe and a sweatshirt is a requirement. Now that the days of shorts are just about over and harvest season is in sight, it's time to switch from outdoor recipes to bone sticking indoor cooking and that means braises and roasts. This share is a kickstart to fall with the inclusion of chicken and duck, both a great option for those stick-to-your-bones meals we mentioned.

Chicken in Milk

Copyright -
Copyright -

This is perhaps one of the best recipes for chicken I've ever made and, on top of that, it's dead simple. This recipe gives you an easy way to bring a roast chicken to the table, while also providing enough food to last a few days an extend the reach of the bird. If you're so inclined, we save the bones after eating and use them in stock, only furthering the use of the chicken and giving you more for the money.

Jamie Oliver's Chicken in Milk

Slow Roasted Duck

For us, duck is a beautiful meal in the fall. It's rich, it has crispy skin and the smell is just amazing. With the abundance of fat that is typically found on duck compared to chicken, roasting the duck with vegetables pretty much gives you a one-pot meal that's fit for a king. When it comes to how to cook duck, there is no one we trust more than Hank Shaw, who is not only a close friend, but also the author of Duck, Duck, Goose, veritable Bible for cooking any species of waterfowl you can think of. His recipe for slow roasted duck is a great place to start, and you won't go wrong.

Slow Roasted Duck



September is National Fried Chicken Month

As you may have guessed from the title, we at Ham Sweet Farm have officially declared September, Fried Chicken Month. Now, no one should ever need an excuse to cook fried chicken, but this now makes you unpatriotic if you don't partake. So, why fried chicken you might ask? Why not? This month's chicken is the last batch of the season (we do still have a ton in the freezer) and represents the oldest birds we've processed for meat to date. They were approximately 16 weeks old and the breed was Speckled Sussex. They are a heritage breed that is incredibly active and were often found sprinting around the farm getting into trouble. All this activity, combined with their older age, came together to produce a supremely flavorful bird that we couldn't be happier with. These birds are smaller birds and as such make a fantastic fryer bird. You'll be getting the bird cut into 8 pieces, just how you need it for Fried Chicken Month.

Adobo Fried Chicken


Never made fried chicken? No problem, because we have the most amazing recipe for you. We tested this recipe a couple of weeks ago and everyone involved remarked that it was the best fried chicken they had ever had. I would have to agree, as the flavor and tenderness were superb. So, what's the secret? It's arguably sacrilegious, but the secret is par-cooking, or cooking until almost done at low temperature so that when you fry it, there is no worry of it being uncooked. The recipe comes from Ed Lee out of Kentucky and is easy peasy to follow.

Little pro tip to plus up the chicken. Heat some honey in a pan with a few berries of all spice or juniper until fragrant. When the chicken is plated and ready to serve, drizzle the honey over the top. You won't be disappointed.

In addition to the chicken, you'll have some great steaks and brats for the final months of grilling season, so make sure you enjoy the nice weather while it's still here.

Adobo Fried Chicken



June is Chicken Time

Have you ever heard the phrase, "You're no spring chicken"? People talk often about "eating seasonally" and how important that is. The idea is typically applied to the world of produce, but people often forget about it in the context of meat. The reality is though, meat is as seasonal as any produce. This is the reason that when people ask for pork or chicken in the winter, if it's not in the freezer, we won't be able to provide it. We choose to raise and harvest our animals when they are in their optimal environments, that being pasture and/or the woods in the fall.


Specifically though, lets talk about chicken. It's our belief that chickens need to be raised outside and eating bugs. When large enough to be less vulnerable to predators from the sky, they need to be able to range beyond their coop, consuming bugs, grass, worms, snakes or any other items they may find throughout their journeys. Allowing them to range like this and consume this variety ultimately makes for a much better tasting meat. There is more intramuscular fat, more blood movement and subsequently... and perhaps most obviously, more flavor. This is how this month's chicken, and all future chicken through the CSA will be raised, as well as your upcoming Thanksgiving turkey.

In addition to pasture-raising the birds, we're also doing something a bit unique for our members as well. Historically, most people are used to what are called Cornish Cross chickens. These are fast growing meat birds to be raised to slaughter weight in 6 - 8 weeks. The birds we typically raise, called Pioneers, are raised to slaughter weight in about 12 - 14 weeks. However, there are thousands of different chicken breeds, all with their own merits. We wanted to expose our CSA members to this variety, and have chosen to raise 4 different breeds of birds this year; Cornish Cross, Pioneers, Turkens and Speckled Sussex. Throughout the remainder of the year, you'll be able to taste the variety of different breeds and learn just how much variety and flavor there is in Chicken.

Enough with the rambling, lets get to the cooking. The first bird you'll be getting will be the Cornish X, and because of it's younger age, large breasts and mainly white meat, we're going to need to bring in some flavor. Obviously, smoke and char is an easy start for flavor, so we'll be cooking it on the grill in a style known as spatchcock. Spatchcock chicken is probably the best way to cook a chicken on a grill, and it also happens to be one of the quicker ways to do so. Essentially what you're going to do is split the bird in half and and cook it flat on the grill. This gives you great surface area for flavor and heat transfer. Breaking the bird in half sounds tricky, but it's quite easy— rather than me explain it, check out this video on how to do it with a turkey, but the same applies to any bird:

Now, regardless of whether your bird is whole or split, everyone loves crispy skin and good flavor. The secret to great crispy skin is removing all the moisture you can from the skin before cooking.  Luckily, this is easy to do. 24 Hours before you plan to cook your bird, and after you've decided to split or keep your bird whole, generously salt the skin of the bird and place on a wire rack set in a cookie sheet, and place in your fridge for 24 hours. The salt will draw out all the moisture from the skin, and you'll notice that over time the skin will become dry and taut. This is exactly what you want.

Approximately 1 hour before you're ready to grill, remove your bird from the fridge so that it can come up to room temperature, and generously coat in ground fennel and sweet paprika. You can simply grind the spices together and generously coat the chicken in the spice seasoning on both sides. This is my go-to spicing for grilled chicken, especially when I'm cooking the bird spatchcock-style.

Once your grill is nice and hot, throw the bird, skin side down, directly over the heat and cook until nicely charred, usually about 12 - 15 minutes. Flip the bird and cook the remaining time with skin side up until the chicken hits an internal temp of 145. Once it hits temp, remove and let rest, as you would a steak, to allow juices to redistribute.  Cut and enjoy an amazing chicken.

One thing to note is that you may see a slight pink tone in the meat color. This is absolutely normal and typical in pasture-raised birds. Do not be put off by this and resist the temptation to keep cooking until it's gone. If you cook all the pink out, you'll be cooking the bird to 165-170 and it will most definitely become a great candidate for making stock or perhaps a new pair of shoes.

Save the bones in a ziplock freezer bag, until you're ready to make stock with them!  This is a great way to stretch your dollars, while also providing your family with excellent, hearty food.  We usually just start a gallon-sized bag, label it "chicken bones" [we always have separate bags going for chicken, pork, beef, duck and turkey bones, as you can just keep adding until they're full], and then keep it around until fall hits and we're ready to fire up the stove and make some stock.  Stock is very easy to make, good for you, and freezes well!


A couple of other recipes for other items in your basket:


Ham Steak:



Hot off the Grill - It's the May CSA

It's grill time people. IT'S GRILL TIME!!!! This month's share celebrates this by bringing you products that are meant to get you outside and over that open flame. IMG_3054

First up, the beef. In this month's share, you'll find some burger patties that are flat-out delicious with just salt and pepper, but also a flank steak. The most common use for flank steak is fajitas. While fajitas are a perfectly fine preparation, with a little bit of work and awareness of how to cut the steak, you can create a grilled steak that everyone will love. When cooking flank steak, we simply use salt and pepper, but this steak is well suited for any marinade or rub. When you're ready to cook, generously season the meat and then cook over a high heat for only a couple of minutes per side (depends on thickness of course). You want to be sure to not overcook the meat, as it has the potential to get tough if given the opportunity. You're also going to want to ensure adequate resting time, generally about the same amount of time that you took to cook the steak. Once well rested, slice the meat and serve to your family and/or guests. It's not your standard slicing though, as you're going to want to slice it -across- the grain to help tenderize the cuts. Here is a good video.

Once you're all set with the cutting, there's nothing left to do but open a beer or a bottle of wine and enjoy the beautiful weather.


Pork chops are probably the best grilled item on a pig, at least in my opinion. They have great marbling (at least ours do ;) ), a nice fat cap and don't take too long to cook. That's where people go wrong with pork chops though— they overcook them. This country has been told for so long to cook pork to 150 or 160 or even higher, but really, the optimal temperature in our opinion is about 135-140. They'll be just a little bit pink in the center and absolutely perfectly juicy. With this being the first opportunity to try pork raised our way, I suggest using the opportunity to just do salt and pepper for seasoning so that you can clearly taste the difference. As for cooking, you're looking at 3 - 4 minutes per side for a room temperature pork chop and the same rules as above for resting. After that, slice and enjoy with a nice spring salad or even some smashed potatoes. There really is no wrong side when it comes to pork chops, so just enjoy the flavor with whatever you enjoy on the side.

Please remember that the fat on this pork is not the fat you know from the grocery store!  These pigs were finished on barley, which makes their fat snow-white, softer, more flavorful [some would say "nutty"]— you may even notice that it looks and feels different on your hands as you prepare it.  You may be tempted to cut the fat off, but this fat is partially unsaturated, like olive oil.  It's good and good for ya!  If nothing else, you can save it and use it when you're cooking something else, to grease your skillet or flavor a soup.  But, you might find that you like it just as it is, on the chop as part of the bite.



Meat CSA - April Recipes

I'm sure everyone else is as excited about the arrival of Spring as we are. While it now means a few weeks of mud season, it's far more enjoyable to be outside and working with the animals. It also means that we can start to think a bit more about grilling. Grilling means a lot of things, but when we think of grilling, we think of a perfectly seared steak. We kick off the start of the grilling season with the addition of some beautiful ribeye steaks. The smell and sound of the steak hitting the roaring hot grill is one of the most distinctive pleasures of cooking. The sizzle, the smoke, it embodies everything about that's great about cooking outside. steak

Cooking a great steak isn't difficult, but it does require a few key steps to ensure proper doneness and tenderness. This is especially true for the members receiving the 100% grass fed steaks, as they can quickly go from perfect to tough if you aren't paying attention. Here are a few tips and hints to getting the perfect steak.

1. Get your grill roaring hot. If you have the ability to use a cast iron grill, definitely use that, as it transfers heat much better than the typical stainless grill that most are accustomed to. If not, no big deal, as the main thing is to get your grill screaming hot.

2. Generously pre-salt your meat about 60 minutes prior to cooking and leave out on the counter, allowing the meat to come to room temperature. This will allow the salt to penetrate the meat, rather than just being a surface seasoning. 

3. When you're ready to cook, you're going to lay that steak down on the grill an do -NOT- move until you're ready to flip. For rare beef, we typically cook about 3 minutes each side. On average, you'll cook grass-fed beef about 30% less time than grain-fed/supplemented . If you're a fan of well-done meat, you're going to want to cook this meat in some sort of a liquid, as it'll just toughen up far too much to be tasty if grilled to that level of doneness.

Here is a quick guide to test doneness in your meat.  Hold your thumb and finger/s together as pictured, and feel each stage of cooking:

Temperature Test

*for those folks receiving the beef that has had free choice access to grain, you'll follow the exact same directions, just allowing for a slightly longer cooking time.

Chorizo and Eggs

In addition to ribeyes, you'll also find some chorizo, a chuck roast and ground beef. Here are some great recipes for those items as well.

Frittata with Chard and Chorizo

Braised Beef with Red Onion Gremolata



March CSA - Pork Shank and Top Round Recipes

It's been a long cold winter and the start of the CSA means we're that much closer to spring, and we couldn't be more excited. We're not out of the winter woods yet, so this month's share has those stick-to-your-bones ingredients in the hopes of helping you stay warm until Spring decides to make an appearance. You hear us talk a lot about "value cuts" and the importance of utilizing the whole animal. These cuts don't always get a lot of love at the meat counter, but they have a great deal of flavor, plus in some cases the beautiful addition of gelatin [i.e. the stuff that makes soup or the trendy "bone broth" so delicious]. We kicked off the season squarely supporting this whole-animal philosophy, adding in pork shanks for the first edition of the small shares. These shanks are huge and are some of my favorite cuts on the animal. For the best use, you're going to combine three methods of cooking: searing, braising and broiling. It sounds like a lot of work, but I can assure you, it's not. This is a simple dish that's perfect for a cold day, and will give you a good deal of leftovers for the rest of the week.

[yumprint-recipe id='26'] 

Now onto the second recipe, the top round. The top round was in all the shares this month and is a great introduction into the world of grass-fed beef if you're unfamiliar with it. While you've invariably had beef before, grass-fed beef is, well, a different animal than what you typically find in stores. The cows tend to be older so that they put on more weight (also more flavor), and they also tend to be a bit more lean. Because of this, you need to take some care when cooking so that you can avoid having meat that is too tough. For the top round, we're going to do a simple roast, cooked to medium-rare and sliced thinly. You can pair this with roasted veggies, mashed potatoes or even atop a salad if you wish. Lets get to the recipe.

[yumprint-recipe id='27']


Thanksgiving Day Prep


Thanksgiving Day Prep

Turkeys in the field
Turkeys in the field

If you were to ask people, "What is your most feared meal?", chances are it would be Thanksgiving. The meal is always a large one, usually with many people around the table, all eyes on the pièce de la résistance. This is what we think of when we think about the Thanksgiving table, and no one wants to be remembered as the one who ruined an avian centerpiece. The fear is unwarranted, however, as with a few steps ahead of time and some careful planning the day of, you should be able to avoid a dry, tasteless turkey and have something remarkable for your guests and/or family.

Heritage vs. Broad Breasted

One of the main reasons people fear cooking a turkey is because conventional turkeys have been bred to the point of massive breasts and overall unnatural size and growth rates— weighing in well over 20lbs when they are processed! If there is one thing that's certain in this world, it's that a wild turkey or any heritage breed turkey, will rarely, if ever, weigh in past 20lbs dressed weight. You see, while the Broad Breasted Whites are the Kardashians of the turkey world, our heritage breed birds are far more in proportion, with a whole lot more flavor to bring to the table (pun intended). They have smaller breasts, much more proportional bodies and higher distribution of intramuscular fat [not to mention being far less obnoxious and way more useful than any Kardashian, ever]. All of these things mean that we need to cook these turkeys differently, but when done right, you'll be met with some superb flavor. If this is your first time having a pastured, heritage breed bird, well, you are in for quite a treat.

Snoozing on the job
Snoozing on the job

Cooking and Prep

Cooking a turkey is not difficult in the least if you pay attention and think it through. It all starts with the prep of the animal, and as far as I see it, there are three basic options as to how you begin the Turkey Day ritual. Lets take a look at these methods now.


It seems that the most popular way to prep a turkey is to brine it. Brine is simply a solution made up of water, salt, sugar and various other aromatics to impart flavor and water into the bird. Notice I said flavor AND water, which is key to understand. The water is what keeps the bird seemingly "moist", however it's a bit of a misnomer, as it's not so much moist so much as it is wet. When meat is tender, it's because of the fat, the protein breakdowns, etc. Think dry-aged beef for instance— it's the fat and the protein breakdown from the aging that improves the texture, not a brine. The same is true for turkeys.There is 0 shame in the brine, so long as you're aware of why it works and what it's doing. If you do happen to take this path, make sure to pull the bird out of the brine with adequate time to let the bird come up to room temp and for the skin to dry. Do not cook from cold, as this will both slow down cooking times, as well as begin the horrible uneven cooking process.

If you're interested in detailed science and studies around brining (I know this is odd), here is a fantastic article on it:

Turkeys Up Close
Turkeys Up Close


If we're keeping with common tradition and going to put a whole bird on the table, this is my go-to method. It's also incredibly simple, yet so very effective. Take 1/2 to 1 tbsp of salt per pound of bird, and very generously salt the skin of the bird. Place on a wire rack over a plate or pan in the fridge for 24-48 hours. About 2 hours before you're ready to cook, remove the bird from the fridge to allow it to come up to room temperature and then begin the roasting process. This prep method has proven to create the most crispy skin and evenly seasoned bird of the methods mentioned here. I use this very same method on pretty much any bird I cook, except duck, but that's a post for another day. What happens here is that the salt helps to pull out the moisture from the skin, as well as break down some of the protein in the muscle, creating tenderness, as it migrates throughout the bird.


If you can get away from the traditional mindset of a whole turkey, trussed and stuffed, the absolute best way to cook a turkey is in rolled form. One of the biggest challenges with cooking a whole turkey is that different parts of the bird do best at different temps and different lengths of time [think legs vs. breast]. When cooking a whole bird, you're really in an exercise of compromise, trying to find the happy medium. However, if you modify your cooking shape, you can  unify the cooking times and create a much more evenly-cooked turkey, but in a non-traditional form. I know that boning out a turkey may seem daunting, but with a little bit of patience and a sharp paring knife, you can accomplish it with no problem. Here is a great video for deboning a chicken, which is exactly the same as a turkey, just on the obviously smaller scale.

Temperature Control

Now that you have a prep method, you're going to need to make sure you cook it to the right temp. If you read any conventional cooking method instructions for typical turkey, they will suggest pulling the bird at a temp of 160 - 180. If you happen to hit anywhere near that temp with a heritage bird, which has smaller breasts, you will have a beautiful mount for your wall, rather than a delicious heritage bird.  Don't do it!  For a heritage bird, you want to cook to 145 degrees. A meat thermometer is essential, and for a whole roast bird, you're looking at 6-8 minutes per pound at about 400 degrees. When you pull the bird, you'll get carry over of about 10 degrees, leaving your dark meat at about 155, which is perfect. You can go lower temp if you choose, but the time per pound will obviously increase (325 is 12 - 15 minutes per pound). Invest in a good instant read thermometer to monitor the thigh and breast meat, they are indispensable. You'll want to ensure that your thigh is cooked to 145

Nike and Birds
Nike and Birds

Stretching the Bird

No, don't physically stretch your turkey out!  People splurge on holiday turkeys, we all know this, but there are way to extend your purchase beyond Thanksgiving dinner and Leftovers sandwiches. Save the bones and gristle that's left over and make a stock. Take that stock and remaining meat and make some pot pie. Save the bones again and make a remoulage.

Recipes to get you going

[Photograph:&nbsp;  Jessica Leibowitz  ]

[Photograph: Jessica Leibowitz]



Skirt Steak with The Apple Gin

Apples and beef are pretty much what autumn is all about, and after a long week and day of work, a long-winded meal was not going to really fly for the evening.  This is when tasty ingredients and simple salt and pepper seasoning come into play.  I reached for a skirt steak from Natural Homestead Beef and the salt and pepper with a little sprinkling of walnut oil and threw it on the grill.  I put that alongside some arugula with some dressing, as well as some sweet corn from Munson Farms and all was good and delicious. To match that we made a quick little gin drink with some items from the bar that we’re calling The Apple Gin.

[yumprint-recipe id='6'] 



Passion Fruit Margarita

After a week of cooking and a long day at work we found ourselves with a number of leftovers— high quality leftovers in the beautiful slow cooked ham with cider, cloves, apples and spring onions.  While the food was perfectly fall, we decided to treat ourselves to a little tropical excursion with a Passion Fruit Margarita made with all fresh ingredients and something kinda yummy. While we were eating leftovers as our main course, we did manage to incorporate some new foods as we whipped out some homemade crackers we got at the last food swap, some fresh cheese and home-cured bresaola.  You can learn more about my meat curing over at Eat the Pig if you’d like …

[yumprint-recipe id='5']



Slow Cooked Ham with Whiskey Sours

Slow Cooked Ham

Today we made a delicious slow cooked ham in the crockpot braised for approximately 8 hours. The ham was cooked with apples, onions, rosemary, honey and a mixture of chicken broth and cider as a braising liquid. The finished product was absolutely delicious being fall off the bone tender, a nice blend of salty and sweet.

The final product was shredded and served over rice with the onions and apples as accompaniments, and covered with a couple of ladles of broth over top of it. It was topped with some alder smoked salt to finish it off. All in all one hell of a meal.

[yumprint-recipe id='3']