Mary’s Marvelous Air Chilled Chicken

A chicken is not just a chicken. How the meat looks and tastes depends on the breed, how the bird was raised, what it was fed, and how it was handled after it was butchered. Factory farmed chickens are debeaked, given an artificial diet, and denied fresh air, sunlight, and the opportunity to roam around, pecking at and eating bugs, worms, and grubs (not my favorite food, but one of theirs!). These chickens have flabbier flesh, higher bacteria counts, and less flavor than truly free range or pasture-raised birds. PHOTO RIGHT: Mary's Air Chilled Chicken

One of my associates recently raved about Mary’s Air Chilled Chicken. She gave me a link to their web site and encouraged me to try it. Turns out Whole Foods Markets sell her chicken, so I picked up a chicken the week before Thanksgiving. I also picked up a duck and a turkey, which I’ll tell you about in a couple of upcoming posts.

What’s different about Mary’s farm?
Mary's Free-Range Chickens are produced by Pitman Farms a family owned business outside of Fresno, CA, that has been raising poultry for three generations. Don Pitman began raising free-range turkeys and chickens in 1954.  His son, Rick, continued to raise turkeys and named them after his wife, Mary. Their son, David, continued the family tradition of raising chickens. Our turkeys and chickens are named after Mary because she ahs studied nutrition and read labels for 25 years, looking for pure products in an effort to regain her health. Mary's Chickens are chickens that Mary would buy for her family. PHOTO RIGHT: Mary's Air Chilled Chicken

 What’s different about Mary’s poultry?
Her name is on every package of poultry that leaves the farm. You don’t see that with commercial factory farmed chicken raised by anonymous people who have no vested interest in the health of the chickens or their consumers. Their chickens, turkeys and ducks are named after Mary because she’s been studying nutrition and reading labels for 25 years, looking for pure products in an effort to regain her health. Mary's Chickens are chickens that Mary would buy for her family.

Mary’s chicken, turkeys, and ducks run around outdoors. They’re grown naturally with plenty of open space on a ranch in sunny California. These chickens are raised in a humane manner by allowing them to roam in a stress-free environment that is four times the size of the average commercial ranch. Because of cleaner living quarters, a healthier and happier turkey is produced having a better taste.

 Mary’s chickens are fed a vegetarian diet consisting of grains and vegetable proteins, plus the bugs, worms, and grubs the chickens forage for. They never receive animal by-products or hormones and they meat is never treated with any preservatives or additives. PHOTO BELOW: Mary's Air Chilled Chicken

Mary’s ranches have three varieties of chicken: natural, organic, and pasture raised.The difference between the natural and the organic is the feed. The organic birds get USDA certified organic feed. Their  pasture-raised chickens, which they sell as Heritage Bronze Chickens, are a slow growing breed from France known as Rhode Island Red. They're outside all the time with a movable open trailer with an awning that's moved every three days to give them new grass and ground to roam and feed on. If you're familiar with the pioneering work of farmer Joel Saliton, you've probably read about these movable chicken roosts.

Mary's Air Chilled Chickens are never debeaked. Debeaking is a standard process in factory farming operations, where distorted behavior patterns such as cannibalism, vent picking, feather pulling, toe picking, and head picking arise because chickens are overcrowded, packed indoors, and denied the opportunity to peck and forage the way they would on traditional, sustainable, and humane farms.

Air chilling makes the difference
Mary’s Chickens are air chilled, a process that inhibit the spread of bacteria by keeping all of the chickens independent. This process also saves 30,000 gallons of chlorinated water every day, making these chickens more eco friendly than the chickens sold in the majority of markets. The folks at Mary’s farm explain,  “The air chilled method produces a better tasting chicken. With no water added, the air chilled method keeps the real chicken flavor and juices. No water is absorbed, so you get the natural flavor of chicken.” PHOTO RIGHT: Mary's Air Chilled Chicken

Chlorine in your chicken?
According to an article in the Los Angeles, “Air-chilling is fairly new in the United States and is used by a limited number of producers, though it has been fairly common in Western Europe for almost 50 years.

Most American chickens are water-chilled, meaning a slaughtered chicken is cooled in a large, cold communal bath shared with (usually a large number of) other chickens. The baths are heavily chlorinated, as required by the USDA, and each bird can absorb 2% to 12% of its weight in this water as it cools. The liquid you see as you open the package of a conventionally processed chicken is often drainage from the water bath.

In contrast, air-chilled chickens are chilled on racks in a room using cold air. Each chicken is still sprayed inside and out with a chlorine rinse as required by the USDA, but air-chilled chickens do not absorb water as water-chilled chickens do, and when packaged can be labeled with the statement, ‘No water added.’” To watch a video about life on Mary’s farm, click here

My verdict?
Yummy! I’m impressed. From the moment I opened the package, I knew I had a good chicken. Conventional chicken from supermarkets and natural foods stores often look wet, feel flabby and slightly slimy, and have liquid in the package. I purchased one of Mary’s Air Chilled Chickens from my local Whole Foods Market. I bought a whole bird. When I opened the package, I noticed that the skin was firm, dry, and smooth. It looked healthy like the pasture-raised chickens I’ve gotten from a farmers in San Simone, Arizona, and in Toledo, Ohio. The liver and kidneys inside looked healthy. I chopped them up and gave them (raw) to my cats. My youngest (8 months old) devoured them, a good sign.

To cook the chicken I used a recipe I’ve prepared several times before, Jody Adams's Balsamic-Marinated Chicken Stuffed With Green Olives (a.k.a. Roxanne's Roast Chicken) from an article dated December 13, 2007 in the Digital Journal, about Umami, (pronounced "oo-MA-mee"), a term coined in 1908 by Kikunae Ikeda of the Tokyo Imperial University. Umami means "savory" or "meaty," but it’s more that that. The term define the taste of glutamates found in meat, cheese, and protein heavy foods. Umami has been added to the list of the four most common taste sensations: salty, sour, sweet, and bitter. Those familiar with Chinese medicine have seen the tastes defined as sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and pungent. In this case, Umami would be the sixth taste. PHOTO RIGHT: Rachel Albert Matesz, 2009

What is Umami? For a visual of the taste buds and flavors click here

I’ve made this recipe with other chickens from natural foods stores, with a 100% pasture raised chicken, and a few weeks ago with a Mary’s Air Chilled Chicken. Incidentally, Mary’s also sells pasture raised chickens. My friend Don concurred with me that this was a great chicken. He thought it far surpassed the highly touted Rocky the Range Chickens. When I pulled leftovers out of the fridge this week I was still impressed. Really delicious chicken. I will buy this again. Mary’s Air Chilled Chicken is also available in cut up fryer parts and boneless pieces. If your local natural foods store doesn’t carry this chicken, you can have them contact Mary’s farm to order.

Jody Adams's Balsamic-Marinated Chicken Stuffed With Green Olives ( Roxanne's Roast Chicken)
Yield: Serves 4
Prep time: 10 minutes +  the time to bring chicken to room temp
Cooking time: about 1 1⁄2 hours (mostly inactive aside from turning the chicken)
Resting time: 10 minutes

Chef Jody Adams has served a duck dish using the same marinade and technique at Rialto in Boston for about 20 years, she says. Five years ago, while attending a culinary lecture about umami, she realized why this dish is a customer favorite: The soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, olives and poultry are all rich in umami compounds. A long marinade and slow roasting magnifies those flavors.
[roast chicken]

Ingredients
1⁄2 cup balsamic vinegar
1⁄4 cup soy sauce
1⁄4 cup Dijon mustard
1 1⁄2 teaspoons mustard seeds
1 1⁄2 teaspoons dried rosemary
1 1⁄2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
1⁄2 small white onion, chopped into 1⁄4 inch dice
1 (4-pound) roasting chicken
12 large pitted Sicilian green olives

1. Mix the vinegar, soy sauce, mustard, mustard seeds, rosemary, pepper and onion together in a bowl large enough to hold the chicken, and set aside.
2. Remove the package from the cavity of the chicken; reserve for another use or discard it. Taking care to work directly over a sink, and not spray chicken juices around the kitchen, rinse the chicken inside and out and then dry thoroughly with paper towels. Roll the chicken all around in the marinade, making sure plenty of marinade flows inside the cavity. Cover and marinate 8 hours to overnight in the fridge. Alternatively, put the chicken into a large resealable plastic bag, pour the marinade over the chicken and into the cavity, seal, and refrigerate.
3.  Prior to cooking, bring the chicken to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
4. Remove the chicken from the marinade, allowing any that clings to the chicken to remain. Save the marinade in the bowl. Put the olives in the cavity of the chicken. Set the chicken, breast side down, on a non-stick rack, or a rack sprayed with cooking oil, in a roasting pan. Add 1⁄2 inch water to the roasting pan to prevent the juices from burning. Roast for 50 minutes. Flip the bird, taking care not to lose the olives; pour the reserved marinade over the bird; tuck the wingtips underneath and continue roasting for 40 minutes or until the chicken is done. If the skin begins to get too brown, tent the breast with a piece of foil and continue roasting until the bird is done. The chicken is done when the leg bones have a little play in the socket when you try to wiggle them. A thermometer inserted into the thicket part of the thigh should read 170 degrees.
5. Transfer the chicken to a cutting board or serving platter and let the chicken rest 10 minutes before carving.
6. My Note: Cover and refrigerate leftovers. Once chilled freeze what you don't plant to use within 3 days. Reheat leftovers in a heatproof dish in a toaster oven at 250 to 300 degrees F.

More recipies and information about Umami can be found at the Umami Information Center.

My thanks to Mary Budinger for sharing her favorite brand of chicken with me. I’ll blog about Mary’s Air Chilled Turkey and Duck later this month and share more recipes. I'm having some of the leftover turkey for dinner tonight and plan to defrost and cook the duck before Christmas. I hope you try this amazing chicken.

What do you think? Have you tried this chicken? This recipe? Let me know. I’d love to hear from you.

Comments

[Cathy Payne]

Sounds yummy! By this summer, I hope to be eating my own pastured chickens. Can't wait!

[Joanne]

My goodness, that sounds yummy. I'm looking forward to trying this recipe. Thanks!

[chicken coops]

Absolutely agree that air chilled chicken has better flavor. It also cooks a bit quicker than conventionally produced chicken because it lacks the additional fluids in the meat. But it is much pricier than what is traditionally available at the markets. For that reason, I only buy it when I am cooking for others or if it is steeply discounted on sale.

Hi George,
Yes, it costs more, like many foods raised under more favorable conditions. I have found ways to cut back in some areas to free up more money for good food. Examples: buy a lot of clothing and household items in thrift stores (some look brand new), use cloth napkins and dish towels instead of paper napkins and rarely use paper towels (I've saved hundreds of $$ over the years this way), pack lunches most of the time, use a home drinking water filtration system and thermos bottles instead of buying bottled water and bottled teas, mainly use fresh fruit and nuts or nut butters for snacks rather than expensive protein/energy bars and other packaged snacks, etc. You can get creative and may be surprised at how this can allow you to purchase increasingly more specialty foods.

Chef Rachel

[Jack Shafer]

I own the farm where the "California Bronze" chickens are raised. It's fun watching them roam my fields. I'm glad to hear about people enjoying all the Pitman's fine products - Chickens, ducks and turkeys.