The Perdue Chicken Cookbook

start to steam off, and the more chicken dries out, the tougher it gets.

Keep the skin on chicken during cooking. The skin helps keep juices in,

and tenderness and juiciness go hand in hand. I've tried this both ways, and

the difference is significant. (When you cook chicken with the skin on,

approximately half the fat from the skin is absorbed into the meat; if

calories and cholesterol are very important to you, you might want to remove

the skin before cooking even if it means a less tender result.)

When microwaving any chicken product, cover with a loose tent of waxed

paper to prevent drying.

Some authorities feel strongly that you should not salt the chicken before

cooking because salt draws the juices out during cooking and toughens the

meat. In my experience, there is a detectable difference in tenderness

between salting before cooking and salting afterwards; the chicken that I

salted afterwards was slightly more tender. Still, I would guess that most

people, myself included, wouldn't notice a big difference unless they were

specifically paying attention to it. The difference doesn't jump out at you

as it does with overcooking or freezer burn.

Fry or roast breast pieces rather than microwaving them if tenderness is a

top priority for you. Microwaving is significantly faster, but there's a

greater risk of toughness when you microwave breast meat. Breast meat is

fairly dry to begin with, and you don't have a whole lot of latitude between

overcooking and undercooking. With breast meat, there's a trade-off between

the speed of microwaving and the reliability of frying or roasting.

Why are some chickens yellow skinned and some white?

A chicken's skin color comes from the diet it was fed and the same bird

could have a white skin or a yellow skin, depending on what it ate. The diet

that produces a yellow skin is more expensive than the usual diet, but the

people at Perdue Farms feel it's worth it because a yellow skin color is one

of the fastest ways Frank's inspectors have of finding and disqualifying an

inferior bird. If a bird is sick or off its feed, it doesn't absorb

nutrients well and won't develop the rich golden color that is

characteristic of Perdue birds. Also, if part of a bird's outer skin is

barked", that is, rubbed off due to rough handling during processing, the

Perdue inspectors can detect it more easily than with a white-skinned bird.

Detecting and removing and chicken with a barked skin is important because

damaged skin shortens the shelf life and dries out and toughens the meat.

No white colored chickens get by the inspectors.

Sometimes when I open a package of chicken, there's a pungent odor that

doesn't smell spoiled, but it's definitely unpleasant. Should I throw the

chicken out?

If the odor lasts only a matter of seconds, your chicken is probably fine.

Meat is chemically active, and as it ages, it releases sulfur. When you open

a bag that doesn't have air holes, you may notice the accumulated sulfur,

but it will quickly disperse into the air. In fact, I've heard of cases

where a wife will lean over to her husband and say, "Smell this, I think

it's gone bad." He'll take a deep whiff and find nothing wrong with it.

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