Hard chicken/ old chicken
For My Nigerian folks abroad, if you ever have a craving for Nigerian style chicken, the muscular free range stuff that you have to work hard to chow/chew. Here are some quick tips
Nigerian style chicken is sold in ethnic stores (Indian, Asian, and South American) and specialty meat stores with the tag: “Hard Chicken” or “Old chicken”. They are often sold Whole and frozen, you will have to defrost and cut them.
Cooking Tips:
- Nigerian style chicken takes longer to cook, so give the chicken a quick boil prior to use
- We can all agree that Naija style chicken is better fried, but if you are health conscious, try oven frying, you will use about 90% less oil and the chicken will come out crispy.
- The chicken pictured below was boiled in some water and spices; I then added some oil and suya spice and oven fried the chicken
Hard chicken is tasty for me but what gives me concern is the fat after boiling and if it does not have antibiotics.
Isn’t it really a different species of chicken totally different from the chicken we eat in America? It is not an old American chicken.
Not a different species most American chickens are given things to enhance growth hard chickens are simply chicken not given anything but that did live longer life spans than the average chicken. So same species
how do u add the oil to oven fry?
Around here (Texas, US) it is just called hen. Had some at a Nigerian restaurant last night. Vietnamese stores also sell hen. Hen is tougher because it’s after the hens are too old to lay eggs.
I can almost taste it. Looks yum yum.
:)
yes it does
Men, I cannot stand the tissue paper textured chickens dey sell in regular grocery stores. Nothing beats the Naija hard chicken o jare!
You find these easily in regular supermarkets, they call it STEWING HEN. Also hard beef is called stewing beef.In London they hang them up fresh in Brixton and Peckham Markets. In North America it is difficult to find them fresh. But Asian (Indian/Chinese) stores carry them as well as other Ethnic stores. I suppose if you live in the country close to farms or the Amish/Mennonite communities you can get them fresh directly from the smaller farms.
Thank you for the tips!
lol, lol, lol, lol, we in Trinidad call this fowl, not hard chicken, hehe. There is a skill to cooking fowl because if you don’t get it right you’d be chewing till the end of time. For me, i use the pressure cooker and it as right as rain and ready to be devoured.
Love the look of this chicken, yum
hope you are well. Stay blessed.
looking for the book.
Thank you beautiful one…….
I’ve not seen this around these parts. But most times I do oven fry my usual chicken. So wary of frying these days.
why? fat content? have you tried acti-fry?
I’m coming for my own this weekend…..Keep my own oh
okay……