For the longest time, I've been keeping my eyes open for a stewing hen. I make very good Chicken and Dumplings, and I've always heard that I could make it really great if I could just get my hands on a stewing hen.
See: Where do all the tough old birds go?
When I finally saw stewing hens in our local "if you can't find it elsewhere, look here" store, they were not at all what I had imagined.
Scrawny, frozen for God knows how long, no dates on the package, poorly wrapped, iceberg things.
I bought two.
Now what??
Surely the meat from this thing can't be worth anything…or can it?
My standard way to make special chicken broth is here: Why does the fat on my chicken broth sometimes solidify, sometimes not? Should I do anything differently with this thing? Can I expect the meat to be worth anything, or should I just simmer it to death to flavor the broth? Any other advice?
Best Answer
I'm from the company you got your hens from.
Water cooking is the traditional method, the size of this bird is representative of the breed, which is leghorn fowl. This is the breed used both in commercial and backyard egg layers.
The stock made from the stewing hen is far more flavorful then any other chicken you will find anywhere. The meat is also rich in flavor, however as the age of these hens is significantly older than that of a broiler, (8-10 weeks vs 90-130 weeks for a stewer), the meat is tougher.
Our inventory is very current, in fact none of our inventory is beyond 15-30 days at this time, and our distributors are also working with very current inventory.
The color of the skin returns immediately, even running a little tap water over it will bring the white/yellow color back. The skin tends to be fairly lean, leaner than a meat chicken, so once frozen it becomes almost translucent.
Thank you for trying our product, and I hope your chicken soup was as delicious as we have come to know in our own kitchens over the past 70 years.