Category Archives: Chickens – All About

HARD TIMES !!

Lunch today

2015-03-06 - Chicken Feet Pot2015-03-06 - Chicken Feet

Dairy prices are down, venison keeps falling, electricity is up and the courier companies are screwing us left, right and center, so here at Back Yard Farmer we are not wasting anything.  We have worked out using almost everything from the garden and are now working on using every part of the back yard chickens, starting with what we always discarded, the feet. I have often eaten chicken feet, mostly in some Asian restaurant, and the very best I had was on a recent business trip to Qingdao, China (along with an assortment of scorpions, tasty bugs and larvae like things – the food of the future). Strange how Chinese food does not taste as good in restaurants outside China. The same goes for Italian food, I suppose, unless one cooks oneself, so, here is Mrs BYF’s version of chicken feet – delicious although the cook was a bit squeamish to start off with.

Zampe di Gallina 

Chicken Feet Arrabiata  (Arrabiata means angry – so this is quite hot)

4 chicken wings or any other part of the chicken that is not dry white meat, skin on

6 to 8 chicken feet, nails removed (I had to do that myself, Mrs BYF baulked)

1 piece of fresh ginger just bigger than a thumb finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1 large red chilli or as much as you can take, finely chopped

1 litre of chicken stock

small handful of parsley and sage finely chopped

4 table spoons of olive oil

1 cup of wine, red or white

Pre heat the oven to 200 deg

Use a cast iron pot with a close fitting lid, big enough to take all the chicken. Heat a tablespoon of oil in the pot and brown the chicken pieces well on all sides. Remove and add the feet,  cook on medium high for a few minutes. Remove the feet. Add the rest of the olive oil to the pot and add the chilli and garlic. Cook until the  garlic is soft but not coloured. deglase the pot with the wine, cook until the wine bubbles.  Add the chicken, feet and all to the pot, and cover the chicken with the stock. Bring to the boil on the stove, cover the pot with the lid and place the pot in the oven. Cook for 3 hours, twenty minutes before serving, add the parsley and sage. Eat with polenta.

Do not forget to enjoy this dish with lots of red wine!  ENJOY!

 

Anconas in the Backyard : welcoming Sparklespot

2015-02-23 - Sparklespot

When I started my small flock of Anconas I knew that the genetic material for breeding would be limited.  In the struggle to find additions to the happy family is ongoing, with long road trips to collect chickens not related to Alvin the rooster and consistent lobbying on the internet has become a way of life. Sometimes I celebrate a new arrival. The 4 year old grandson went up to the coop to inspect the new girl, and to give her a name. To our delight he announced: ‘she IS Sparkelspot!”. Great name for such a spotty chicken.

FOUR DIFFERENT EGGS FOR BREAKFAST

2014-12-17 - Four Eggs 2 2014-12-17 - Four Eggs

 

Fried eggs for breakfast. The unique thing was not the bit of chili and butter in the pan but that the eggs were from top to bottom: bought brown hens egg , pure white egg, laid by my Ancona hen, egg laid by my guinea fowl hen and a pretty speckled egg laid by my quail hen.  In the pan the pale yellow is the bought egg and the middle egg beside it is the guinea fowl egg. The latter took a bit longer to cook than the others. Very tasty treat. Yolk color is more often than not an indication of quality of the feed consumed and the general well being of the bird.

The bird that flipped the world: Secret histories of the modern chicken

2014-03-16 - Street Accident

 

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/06/the_bird_that_flipped_the_world_secret_histories_of_the_modern_chicken/

Guy Fawkes and Chickens

2014-11-18 - Alvin Crowing

The fireworks started before dark and when I went to close the chickens at dusk I found they were sitting high up in the Ngaio tree. I tried to entice them down but when darkness fell I gave up. To protect my animals from  stoats, hedgehogs, cats, dogs and all the wild things, real or imaginary, that roam the back yard at night I make sure that everyone is in and closed up properly. After a final check around the yard, with the racket of the fireworks still going on all around, I went to bed, hoping that nothing would get at my chickens.

At 1 am Alvin, the rooster, perched high in the tree,  bathed in bright moonlight as well as the light of a new street lamp and fireworks still going, looked out over ‘his’ valley and registered his joy by crowing. The rejoicing went on and on. Every crow louder and clearer than the preceding one and probably heard by neighbours kilometers away. Mrs Back Yard Farmer, a light sleeper, started muttering at the initial crow, the mutterings grew louder and transformed into threats regarding wrung necks and then degenerated into some impressive swearing in at least two languages. By 4 am Mrs BYF had enough. It was when she rose from her bed like the proverbial phoenix, incandescent with rage, I realised that I did not take into account the most dangerous wild thing that could roam the back yard – an angry Mrs BYF.  Armed with a few brooms and the flashlight on her phone she braved the dark, wet steps at the back door, located the rooster in the tree and threw brooms at him until he fluttered to the ground and took refuge under the coop. Mrs BYF, thinking her job was done,  started the perilous journey back to the house only to hear a loud crow behind her. This time she tried to find the rooster, intending to murder him if she got her hands on him, throwing stuff at him as she went.

By daybreak Mrs BYF had returned to her bed and I pretended to be dead. Should there ever be a repeat of this Guy Fawkes night I am certain that the only thing that will save my neck is the lack of a big enough pot. The rooster will be cooked.