Heritage-breed birds represent an attempt to return to the
old days of chicken and turkey farming, when the birds
were a bit scrawnier but a whole lot tastier. In blind tastings
I’ve conducted, heritage-breed birds routinely beat out their
modern counterparts in terms of flavor. The only downside?
With thinner breasts and meat that’s more prone to drying
out, they’re harder to cook—which means that a
thermometer and very careful monitoring of temperature is
more important than ever. With the recipes in this chapter,
you’ll get super tasty results even from supermarket birds,
but I do recommend looking for heritage birds once you feel
comfortable with roasting poultry.
POST-SLAUGHTER PROCESSING
Q: What makes a “kosher” bird kosher?
According to Jewish dietary laws, animals must be
slaughtered in a particular way, which includes being
washed, salted, and rinsed. The goal of this process is to
remove excess blood from the meat.
In fact, any meat that you see in a supermarket was
drained of blood immediately after slaughter (the red liquid
in meat is not blood, by the way—see here). Kosher birds,
however, get a few extra steps. After an initial wash in
water, the birds are covered all over with coarse kosher salt.
Through osmosis, additional blood and intracellular fluids
are drawn out of the meat. Afterward, the birds are rinsed to
remove excess salt and packaged to be sold.
As we’ll soon find out, in the section on brining (see
here), salt can have a powerful effect on meat, allowing it to