Most people living in rural areas have poultry on the farm . Most often, hens are planted for meat or fresh eggs. Sooner or later, the bird is used for food, so every owner should know how to kill and how to pinch chickens.
Basic rules and pluck steps
The owner must choose the bird intended for slaughter in advance. This is not a whim or eccentricity, but a well-founded necessity. The stomach of the selected bird must be absolutely empty so that the food remains do not decompose inside the carcass after slaughter and do not spoil the meat. Dead birds need to be processed immediately. Otherwise, removing feathers will be much more difficult. First a dry pluck is made. The feather from different parts of the chicken carcass is removed in the following sequence:
- tail and wings;
- breast
- back;
- legs, neck.
The work must be carried out very carefully so as not to accidentally damage the skin. Anyone who does not know how to pinch chickens sometimes in a hurry captures a large number of feathers. In no case should this be done. This can lead to rupture of the skin and complicate further processing. After cleaning the pen, you need to take a dull knife and cut off the hemp with it, and also remove the fluff remaining in some places.
To work faster
There are several small secrets that help you understand how to pluck chickens, spending as little time as possible on this procedure. For example, everyone knows that feathers are removed from the surface of the carcass strictly in the direction of their growth. But sometimes it’s rather difficult to do. In order to facilitate the feather removal operation, experienced housewives briefly (40-60 seconds) lower the newly killed bird into a container of hot water. Water temperature should be 50-55 degrees. And the head, wings and neck are additionally scalded with boiling water at a temperature of approximately 58-60 degrees. After such processing, the pen is removed without any problems.
There is another secret that helps you figure out how to pluck chickens. After the main treatment, very small feathers usually remain on the bird’s carcass, which cannot be removed with a knife or tweezers. In this case, first grind the carcass with flour or bran, and then burn it with a gas burner. The soot that forms on the surface can easily be washed off with water.
Sequencing
The pluck is one of the intermediate operations of the general procedure for cutting poultry. And you need to perform it properly, so as not to spoil the final product. For example, you must remember that before you pluck a chicken, all entrails should be removed from it. For this, a small incision is made on the abdomen. It is necessary to get internal organs blindly, therefore it is necessary to do this extremely carefully. The main thing at this stage is not to damage the pancreas. Otherwise, the bile will fall on the meat and finally ruin it. After all, it is almost impossible to neutralize the unpleasant aftertaste of bile. The removed entrails must be carefully folded into a separate container, set aside and only then engaged in their final processing. If you do this right away, the chicken carcass can cool, and the plucking process will be noticeably difficult. That is why all actions must be thought out and coordinated. It is necessary not only to know how to pinch the chicken, but also to understand the possible consequences of each step.
The latest technology
No one will argue that the plucking procedure of the bird is quite laborious and debilitating. In addition, it takes a lot of time. Design engineers came to grips with this issue. Their goal was to figure out how to quickly pluck a chicken or any other bird. Finally, they invented a special device with which the process of removing a feather from the surface of a carcass is reduced significantly. This device is a kind of brush, which consists of a cylinder and fingers fixed on it, made of rubber or silicone. The device is made in the form of a nozzle, which can be easily fixed to a conventional screwdriver or drill. Such a device works very simply. When the nozzle rotates, elastic fingers knock down the pen, gently tearing it from the surface. The skin remains virtually untouched. A person should only hold the carcass in his hands and bring it to the device with the right side. The cleaning process lasts only 2-3 minutes instead of 30-40 minutes with manual plucking.
Intermediate product
A plucked chicken is a bird deprived of feather cover and ready for further cooking. It is a semi-finished product for preparing a large number of delicious dishes. It is in this form that hens enter store shelves. The buyer can only bring the product home and cook accordingly as he wishes. The bird goes on sale already without entrails. These minor products are sold separately. The bird purchased in the store can be divided into parts or cooked whole. In Soviet times, chicken was a big deficit. Behind her lined up entire lines in stores. Not everyone, of course, got it. And the happy owners of the treasured purchase proudly carried their "booty" home. Modern industry has greatly simplified the work of housewives. Now on sale are not only the whole chicken carcass, but also its individual parts: hips, wings, backs. Everyone can choose a product suitable for themselves.