Poultry | Types Of Chicken

Poultry generally refers to domesticated birds usually for flesh. In French it is called 'vollaile '. It is believed that Chinese were the first people to farm these birds. Generally poultry consists of Duck, squab ( baby pigeon) , Turkey , chicken

Types of poultry

1. Duck - The cooking method adopted and taste slightly differs of duck when compared to chicken. Ducks are of various breed out of which Peking and Barbary are popular. Duck under two month is called as duckling while three month old duck is called canard.

2. Squab - Squab is 25 to 30 days old pigeon before it learns to fly.  It is baby pigeon weighting 600 grams. The meat is darker and flavourful . 

3. Turkey - It is popular in festivals and size varies from 3 kg to 12 kg. The meat of turkey is very popular and is roasted in oven after trussing.

4. Chicken - It is domesticated for meat and egg from long time . The types of chicken are listed below.

Types of chicken 

Chicken is also called ' poulet ' in French and they are usually classified according to their weight and age of slaughter. 

• Baby chicken :- It weight 500 - 600 gram and is usually slaughtered at age of 1 month.

• Battery chicken :- It weights 1 kg and slaughtered at 45 days.

• Broiler chicken :- It weight around 1.5 to 2 KG and slaughtered at around 2 month of age 

• Poulard :- Matured hen weighting above 2 kg and above 1 year of age

• Capon :- It weight 3 KG to 4 KG and are around 5 month . They are male roosters.

• Breese chicken :- They are Free range top quality birds. Male have red comb.

Quality points of chicken :-

1. The flesh should be firm.

2. The leg should be smooth with small scale and small spurs

3. Old chicken should have large spurs and scale in leg

4. The feet should be bright yellow.

CUTS OF CHICKEN 

1. Whole chicken :- it is whole bird with all parts . It have breast , thigh, drumstick, wings but internal goblet removed. The whole chicken is best for oven Roasting after trussing.

2. Breast and tenderloin :- Breast are most popular part of chicken. Various types of dishes are made of breast. It can be stuffed, grilled but overcooking should not be done it else they will dry out.

3. Wings :- They are cheap cut which can be roasted , grilled or barbecued. When grilled or roasted the skin becomes crispy and delicious. The wings part have higher fat than breast meat .

4. Drumstick :- They come on bone and are also cheap cuts of meat . They are best when fried and easy to cook. The fat content of drumstick is similar to wings. 

5. Thigh :- Thigh meat is very tasty and takes longer time to cook. They taste best when Roasted.