Chicken is now the most affordable meat, perhaps. But for many, it becomes the least loved, and not at all because it is boring.
Chickens went wrong today. If we compare the taste of the birds of the present with those that were five years ago, then in most cases the current ones will lose in taste. But in size they seem to win.
You will say that I am stuck, but I think that chicken (or rather, broiler chicken, because they act as chickens on the shelves) weighing more than 1300, maximum 1500 grams, is inedible.
Such chickens have a very unpleasant aftertaste, smell, especially during cooking, and the meat has a very strange structure, even raw, while during cooking it just starts to creep.
And these chickens do not have a chicken taste. And the broth from such chickens is disgusting. And in general, sheer pain and disappointment.
Therefore, the first mistake, in my opinion, is the choice of a bird that is too large. Broilers are slaughtered at about 80 days of age. Just think what the bird has to eat, miles sorry for the rude expression to turn into an accelerator ???
The second error follows from the first. These are spices, or rather, their excessive use or the use of incorrect combinations.
The specific smell and taste of these birds requires special handling. You may not believe me, of course, but dill, for example, cannot be used, absolutely not! It only emphasizes what needs to be hidden.
Very fragrant condiments of such a coniferous orientation, if you can describe them that way, such as juniper and rosemary, are also contraindicated. For homemade chicken, with dense meat and the smell of chicken, they will go. And the meat of industrial broilers is not dense. It absorbs too much of the aroma and flavor of the seasonings very easily. As a result, you get something incomprehensible to your taste.
For my taste, parsley, cilantro, soy sauce, ginger, different types of peppers, paprika, lemon juice and lemon zest, garlic, and onions are more or less combined with broilers. But all this must be used carefully.
The third mistake: the choice of the cooking method. Boiling modern broiler chickens for broth is becoming a pointless affair. The broth, no matter how hard you try, turns out to be tasteless, unclear, not fragrant.
Stewing such birds is also not very tasty. The very smell and taste of overgrownness will come out as the main note.
For my taste, the only option is to fry and bake, in the oven, in a frying pan, on the grill... Without preserving the fat, firstly, and secondly, bringing the passes to a golden brown crust. Yes, fried is not healthy, they say. But living is generally harmful. And by roasting well even a modern broiler, you can make it edible. Firstly, the umami taste will be well expressed in the dish (the same notorious fifth taste that our brain likes so much), and secondly, during frying, many substances are released that improve the aroma.
To clarify, these are exclusively my observations, so I do not pretend to be the ultimate truth.
By the way, if you share your secrets of taming today's broilers, it will be not bad at all.