Poultry

Preparation

1. Bland

   Step 1

   Try rubbing the bird with marjoram (which is also interesting in chicken salad). Mix oregano with olive oil, and rub it on the fowl. Likewise with rosemary or tarragon or thyme. Mix some hot mustard, oregano, paprika, or sesame seeds in with the batter for fried chicken. Crush three or four juniper berries into the chicken salad. And so on.

2. Breading falls off

   Step 2

   See breading, falls off.

3. Dry

   Step 3

   Slice your bird and arrange it on a heatproof platter. Make a sauce using equal amounts of butter and chicken broth. Pour it on the sliced bird and let it stand in a 250°F oven for 10 minutes to soak up the juices.

4. Feathery

   Step 4

   In our modern age of convenience, most birds come defeathered. In our modern age of deteriorating personal services, often the defeathering isn’t good enough. If you don’t have a chicken plucker on your household staff, here are two reasonably simple methods of defeathering a fowl:

   Step 5

   The hot wax treatment: Add paraffin or old candles to boiling water. Wait until the wax melts. Dip the bird up and down in the pot until it is coated with wax. Wrap in newspapers and let cool. Now, as you peel off the wax, the feathers should come off along with it. (If you can’t get the wax off, stick a wick in the bird’s beak and you have an emergency candle.)

   Step 6

   The soap method: Heat a big pot of water to boiling. Add 1/4 cup dishwasher detergent. Drop the fowl in the water, slosh it around for 2 or 3 minutes, and then roll it up in a towel. You should be able to rub off any remaining feathers. Follow with a cool-water rinse, and don’t worry about the taste: no soap.

5. Gamy

   Step 7

   Sometimes duck or pheasant or even turkey will taste too gamy for your palate. This is no reflection on the bird’s behavior in the barnyard. Ginger, sherry, and brandy (the latter two applied to the bird, please) have a tendency to lessen gamy taste in poultry. You can also rub 1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger into the bird’s skin before roasting or add any of the three to the gravy or sauce you serve over the meat.

6. Not enough

   Step 8

   Serve the poultry on a waffle that you have made by adding 2 teaspoons poultry seasoning to the dry ingredients before adding the liquid. You can get away with about half as much meat this way.

7. Pale

   Step 9

   Applying paprika liberally to the skin of a fowl before roasting it will ensure a rich color. You can sprinkle it on at any point in the cooking process to help a pallid bird.

8. Tough

   Step 10

   Meat tenderizer will work on fowl as well. For poultry cooked in liquid, try adding a pinch of baking soda to the liquid. And for broiling or roasting, tenderize the birds by rubbing them inside and out with lemon juice before cooking.