As you may recall, our White Leghorns
have been a new and somewhat ornery addition to our flock this
year.  In fact, if they weren’t such prime winter layers, I would
have put them in the pot by now.  But they keep laying…and I keep
working around their issues.



The hen pictured above is
particularly problematic.  She kept breaking into the barn to lay
her eggs, and after I blocked off her access point, she broke into the
garden to lay near
the barn.  I’d clipped her wings and couldn’t figure out how she
was getting in until one day I decided to just weed all morning in the
garden and watch.  It turns out she’d take a running leap at the
unlatched gate and push her way through!  I guess I could have
found a way to latch the gate, but this hen was just too intent on her
nest spot, breaking in dozens of times in one day even after I chased
her out repeatedly.  So I put her in solitary confinement in our
spare chicken coop and pasture.

For about a week, the
lone hen paced the fence line, itching to get back to her nest, but then
it snowed and she decided the coop was okay after all.  I thought
maybe she was going to turn into a good chicken, and I started
considering pulling another hen out of the flock to keep her
company…when the hawk attacked.



Yep, it turns out there’s
another problem with White Leghorns that I hadn’t factored into my
calculations yet.  In the winter, their white feathers show up
against the dark ground so well that they’re easy pickings for
predators.  Our dog chased the hawk away, but the lone hen was
injured in the process and has been sitting droopily on her perch in the
coop ever since.

I’ll keep nursing our Leghorns along until our 2014 pullets start
laying, and I’ll probably hatch out a few of their eggs to see how their
genetics mix with our Australorps, but no way am I getting any more
purebred Leghorns.  They’re laying machines, but in every other way, this breed doesn’t match our farm.

Have you ever tried
brining meat?  If you’re cooking with real chickens from your
homestead, deer from the woods, or other meats that tend toward a tough
texture, brining may give you startling results.



Brining simply involves
mixing salt with water and soaking meat in the liquid for anywhere from
30 minutes to 24 hours.  The idea is that the salty water diffuses
into the meat, pumping it full of moisture so it stays juicy when
cooked.  At the same time, the salt denatures proteins in the meat
that makes the food stringy and tough, so brined meat tends to be more
tender.  The photo above shows some homegrown chicken legs I brined
overnight, then baked in a teriyaki marinade — delicious!

This photo shows some
venison steaks being brined before cooking.  Thin cuts of meat like
this should sit in the brine for only about 30 minutes to an hour, but
huge turkeys would need to brine for 24 hours.  No matter how long
you’re brining, be sure to completely submerge the meat and store it in
the fridge during the waiting period.  If you want a crispy skin
after brining, remove the meat from the brine a few hours before cooking
and allow it to dry off in the fridge for another 6 to 12 hours.



What does the brine
mixture consist of?  Experts recommend one cup of salt per gallon
of water, which happens to be enough salt to make a raw egg float in the
brining liquid.  If you want, you can also add sugar, spices,
herbs, vinegar, lemon juice, or other seasonings to your brine (although
you’ll have to toss the brine when you’re done, so this can get a bit
wasteful).  The salt will help these other seasonings permeate your
meat.


Looking for other delicious ways to cook tough chickens?  Try our quartered creamy chicken, or these classic tips for using up stewing hens.  Or comment with your own advice — we’re always looking for new recipes for homegrown birds.