Phoenix Claws

Phoenix Claws

Our neighbors started up a small-scale chicken operation this spring. Earlier this week, it was time to slaughter the excess 3-month-old roosters, who were starting to fight. Max, the man of the household, was kind enough to catch up the roosters one by one, put them in the killing cone, and cut their throats. His wife and I then plucked and cleaned them with the aid and technical advice of his mom, for whom this was a common task earlier in her life. We're lucky to have her experience to draw on. I'm afraid our speed wasn't up to what we'd been reading about: 4-1/2 seconds to pluck one bird! We tentatively learned how to scald and pluck and gut the birds, spending the better part of three hours to get nine of them all done and on ice. But we'll get faster now that we've got the hang of it.

My neighbors didn't want the feet, so I took them home and boiled them down into stock. My husband recommends getting the heads next time, too, but I'm going to have to work up to that gradually. The feet I thought I was equal to. It turns out they make a very fine stock, being so rich in cartilage. This picture isn't of my own stock, but it looks the same: as firm as Jello once it cools. I got a solid gallon of rich stock out of 30 feet (they did six more chickens after I left). I had taken home a rooster the first night, which my husband obligingly roasted, and then I made up a nice batch of chicken and dumplings with the leftover roast chicken and half of the stock the next day. I used my East Texas aunt's housekeeper's simple dumpling recipe, which produces a pasta-noodle style of dumpling rather than the biscuit-drop variety:

1/2 cup Crisco or lard, melted in
1/2 cup hot water
1/2 t salt
2 cups flour
1 egg

Whip up the melted shortening and hot water until creamy, then beat in the egg until fluffy. Stir in the flour to incorporate, then roll it out to 1/8-inch thick on a floured surface. Let it rest a few minutes, then slice it up into bite-sized pieces and drop them into the boiling chicken soup, leaving them to cook until you like the texture of the cooked dumplings (a few minutes, depending on how thin you got them).

I took half of the finished dish back over to Max and Marydell. I revealed the chicken-foot origins of the stock to her, but she didn't choose to tell Max. Today I mentioned it to him and got the expected ewwww response. What the heck: I strained out the toenails, didn't I? And he'd already admitted how delicious it was. Wait till I make up a batch with the heads.

Asian cultures prize the chicken feet in all kinds of dishes. The Chinese, I understand, call them "phoenix claws." In my household, the stock is for us and the dogs get to eat the de-boned discarded solids, as they always do when I make stock.