# Canning old tough chickens



## RUN1251 (Mar 15, 2012)

I have ten 3-4 yr old hens that need to be replaced. I know they will be as tough as old shoe leather. What can I do them to make them edible? A friend said to cook them in a pressure cooker for 45 minutes at 10 pounds. Let them cool. Debone them and then cold pack the meat in quart jars, cover in broth and pressure can them for one hour at 10 pounds pressure. Does this sound correct? Any other suggestions?


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## Dakine (Sep 4, 2012)

RUN1251 said:


> I have ten 3-4 yr old hens that need to be replaced. I know they will be as tough as old shoe leather. What can I do them to make them edible? A friend said to cook them in a pressure cooker for 45 minutes at 10 pounds. Let them cool. Debone them and then cold pack the meat in quart jars, cover in broth and pressure can them for one hour at 10 pounds pressure. Does this sound correct? Any other suggestions?
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Survival Forum


Quarts are canned at 90 minutes, as opposed to pints which are 75 mins. 
the 10 lbs part depends on your altitude, but for me it is 10 lbs, I think I'm about 400' above sea level.

Not sure what you'd modify on cooking time for precooked bird, I've only cold packed raw chicken so far. You can check the "What are you canning today" thread for suggestions and comments on precooked foods, most of the advice is "dont modify the canning times... at all!" I'm sure many people have modified them in the past and done fine, but I think I'll stay on the safe side with that stuff... although for comparison, I had absolutely no trouble experimenting with canning lasagna (frozen Stouffers from the store lol) and it turned out fine, and I've probably done other things that angered the food gods too; so who knows LOL!

Seems you might be able to pressure cook it, and then make a nice chicken stew or soup, and can that in pints or quarts.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Personally an old bird (even roosters) are for soup/stock, end of story. They actually make better soup than a young one as opposed to making an ok chicken with lots of care otherwise.

There are two main ways to tenderize meat (through cooking), one is slow cooking, the other is extremely high heat. Each one breaks down different parts of the meat that make it tough. If I was really worried about it being tough I would slow cook it first (simmering) then pressure cook/can it. Either way it will likely turn out fine. One thing to watch for is that it is likely to go "stringy" and some people can't handle that. To avoid that you have to make sure to cut the pieces up against the grain.


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## ARDon (Jun 28, 2014)

we like using a pressure cooker for those old tough birds. When we cook a tough stew'n hen the wife & I will usually cook her in a pressure cooker w/ 1 1/2 cups water, chopped onion, thyme, poultry seasoning, chopped celery, minced garlic, salt, pepper for 35 to 45 minutes at 11 lbs. of pressure.

With all the veggies, seasoning the meat was infused with good flavor and good & tender chicken meat too.

Then we can our chicken meat.


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

We slow roast our old birds, really slow. I put them on at 7am and we eat at 7pm. The oven must be low all day and the bird will need to be covered to keep it moist. Even really old birds will be pretty tender at this point but as cowboyhermit said they will be a bit stringy, that doesn't bother us at all but it's a very different meat to commercial meat chicken. We eat the breast meat (won't be much of it on those old birds) and the thighs, the rest goes into the soup pot or I debone, chop fine and can (quarts 90 mins) to make some pretty fantastic gravy that we eat with fresh bread or roast potatoes. 

Our purpose raised meat birds are also not young, the line we breed here are butchered at 6 - 9 months, very different meat to supermarket chicken.


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