Expensive free range chicken was tasteless!

I buy chicken from the butcher. If I am roasting a while one I add loads of flavour In the shape of garlic masses of fresh herbs and lots of lemon over it. The lemon skins then go in the cavity.

I use a good butcher. I also need to know the slaughter code.

I’m lucky to have an excellent butcher nearby that sells only free range and organic. It’s expensive, but products are always excellent. They know all their suppliers. Would rather eat less meat a week, but from a good vendor.

Please, please all you gransnetters who go to the cheapest places for chicken and never think about how the bird has lived it's life - remember that what you're eating had a face and believe it or not, a personality. If you have to eat chicken, then clear your conscience somewhat and go for organically reared chicken that can be traced to a particular farm and will have had space to roam. We do keep chickens (for eggs only) and spend many hours socialising with them - they are wonderful creatures and affectionate.

it's - should be its

I actually bought some reduced in price free range chicken pieces last year from Sainsbury.

Not that tasty to be honest.Would not have paid full price for them.

What happened to the fresh, yellow skinned chickens. Which we used to eat as Children. All the local Butchers used to sell them.

I think they were corn fed and were quite expensive but
very tasty as l remember.

Shizam

I’m lucky to have an excellent butcher nearby that sells only free range and organic. It’s expensive, but products are always excellent. They know all their suppliers. Would rather eat less meat a week, but from a good vendor.

Absolutely agree. We are being advised that we should eat less meat than we do Eat less and better uality.

Many of us will have memories of Capons, birds around 10 pounds or so and probably 6 months old, in this area they were housed in sheds on wheels and put out on the stubbles after harvest to glean the lost corn. They cost little to feed and the taste was totally different, no comparison to the chicken we get today organic or otherwise.

I don't think you can get any tasty meat of any type anymore. I used to really enjoy fillet steak but the only taste you get these days is from any seasonings you put on it whilst cooking. Tesco chicken of any type is disgusting.

Asda and Tesco chicken doesn't taste of anything these days. I buy chicken breasts generally. Quite often the texture is like rubber and, no, they are not overcooked.

I have started going to our local butcher but, to be honest, the chicken doesn't taste much different than the supermarket stuff. I don't know where they get it from but there is a huge chicken farm not too far from where I live. I have been buying chicken thighs which are far more tasty.

David49

Many of us will have memories of Capons, birds around 10 pounds or so and probably 6 months old, in this area they were housed in sheds on wheels and put out on the stubbles after harvest to glean the lost corn. They cost little to feed and the taste was totally different, no comparison to the chicken we get today organic or otherwise.

We have capons for Christmas, now called cockerels - several of the big online grocers sell them, as do farming companies selling direct to the public. They're free range and very tasty, much more so than even decent free range chicken.

Greciangirl

I wouldn’t buy chicken from Asda.
Cheap and not particularly cheerful either.

In fact I wouldn’t buy any meat from there.
Long time ago, I purchased some pork chops from them.
When I read the label, it said slaughtered in Romania for EU consumption. That put me right of.
Not exactly home bred. And why not British pork.
We have loads of pig farms in this country.
Surely there is no need to import it.

I never buy any pork from Asda - it’s mostly from Holland or Germany, which almost certainly means factory farmed - it’s obviously cheaper.
If I want pork or gammon I go to M&S or Waitrose.

I don’t buy any fresh food from Asda anyway, but I’d rather get local chicken from the butcher.

Elless

I don't think you can get any tasty meat of any type anymore. I used to really enjoy fillet steak but the only taste you get these days is from any seasonings you put on it whilst cooking. Tesco chicken of any type is disgusting.

Elless Any supermarket meat, whether poultry or red meat will be tasteless becaause they manipulate the regulations and by the cheapest possible meat.

Find a good local butcher or farm shop, which will often be present and selling at town markets

I don't buy my meat from supermarkets anymore for that reason - I am talking about butchers and farm shops.
When I see minced beef in supermarkets it makes me feel ill, especially when they pack it in air tight wrapping.

Yesterday I stripped the chicken and boiled up the carcass for stock, with sundry veg.
Oddly enough it smelt just the same as usual - certainly
‘chicken-y’.

I now have 2 packs of ‘chick bits’ in the freezer.