How to Select the Best Tasting Chicken – Fresh or Pre-Prepared?

To enhance your dining experience with delicious chicken dishes, it is essential to select high-quality chicken. Nevertheless, this can be quite a daunting task for many individuals, particularly women. Numerous members on the food forum have shared valuable insights on how to choose delectable chicken to enhance your Tet festivities.

How to Choose Raw Chicken

Rooster

Tasty roosters captivate with their vibrant red crests and expressive eyes.

Rooster is an essential dish on the Tet tray, particularly for the New Year’s Eve feast. According to seasoned cooks, a rooster should have firm and delectable meat, a chicken with a vibrant red crest, alert eyes, and no signs of lethargy.

When holding two chickens of the same size, you may notice that one feels heavier than the other. This is likely due to the fact that the chicken with more weight has firmer meat.

The fur of the chicken is smooth and lies close to the body. The beak is sharp and free from any slime. The legs of the chicken are straight and slender, with golden and shiny skin on the feet. Furthermore, it is preferred for the cock to have a short length, as it indicates a younger chicken.

The chicken feathers are marked with thin, soft skin. When lightly squeezed on the chicken body, it feels firm and not mushy. There may be some large yellow streaks under the breast and wings. Under the chicken’s wings and armpits, you can see meat, and visible blood vessels indicate a lean and healthy chicken. The chicken’s skin should not feel tense, which confirms its overall health.

Hen

To ensure optimal meat quality, we recommend selecting hens that have produced 1-2 litters. By doing so, you can enjoy meat that is firm and delightfully sweet.

In the culinary forum, Ms. Le Trang expresses her admiration for hens due to their flavorful meat and beautifully cooked golden skin.

Trang’s expertise in selecting hens for living purposes includes choosing laying hens. She specifically looks for hens with a bright red crest that is not drooping. Additionally, she prefers hens with a yellow breast that is narrow yet firm. Another characteristic she looks for is wings with darker yellow skin.

Ms. Trang selects animals with small legs, like Ms. Tam, and long beaks. If the hill chickens are overstocked, their beaks will become blunt due to excessive pecking on gravel, their ankles, or red nests. The size of the float is larger because the hen lays it, and it will grow bigger. If someone dislikes older chickens, they should choose the one with the baby float that has not been laid yet. Ms. Trang advises against selecting chickens with black dots.

Ready-made broiler chicken

To ensure you select a high-quality peck chicken, it is essential to examine the chicken’s neck.

When selecting chicken for a truly delicious meal, it is important to choose chickens that possess specific qualities. These qualities include a light yellow color, thin and smooth skin, as well as a high level of elasticity. Additionally, some areas such as the breast, wings, and back may have a darker yellow coloration. Ready-made chickens tend to have a compact and well-toned body, particularly in the breast area.

When selecting chicken, it is important to ensure that the meat appears fresh and does not emit any unpleasant odors. Additionally, the skin should be free of any bruises or blood clots. It is advisable to avoid choosing black chicken, as it is likely to have been deceased prior to processing and may not meet the standards of quality.

To determine the quality of chicken, use your hand to press the chicken body, breast, or thigh. If the meat feels firm, it indicates that the chicken is good. However, if the meat feels pasty, slippery, deformed, or concave with excessive water content, it is an indication that the chicken may have been injected with water, sometimes mixed with potentially harmful substances like borax. Therefore, it is highly advised not to purchase such chicken as it may have negative effects on your health.

When selecting a high-quality chicken, one important factor to consider is the appearance of the neck. A healthy and delicious chicken will have a shiny, unblemished neck without any discolored or swollen areas. On the other hand, if the neck skin appears abnormal in color or texture, it is an indication of illness and it is recommended to avoid selecting such chickens.

To determine if chicken has been dyed, one should observe the skin color. If the chicken skin appears yellow while the fat inside remains white, this indicates that the chicken has been chemically dyed.

To ensure the quality of purchased chicken, it is advisable to perform a simple inspection. Simply press the suspected water pump areas (such as thighs and breasts) with your hand. If any unusual stickiness, slipperiness, or deformities are detected, it is recommended not to proceed with the purchase.

By Family & Society