Aldi Chickens - both Marinaded and nonMarinaded

[HappyHarry]

OK.

I have now tried both sorts - the plain ones [twice] and the marinaded ones all in a Kamado Cooker over a mixture of Charcoal and Heat Beads from Coles.

So, 3 of them ranging in weight from 1.65 Kg to 2 Kg. All done essentially the same way. Mixed Coals with Charcoal and Heatbeats. All prelit in a Jumbo home made Chimney Starter Tube. All cooked at between 160 Degrees to 180 Degrees in a Kamado on a Beer Butt Can device mainly to keep the bird centred and vertical rather than being too worried about the beer/tea/water combinations. We tried all three and I think that the can is a gimmick but the vertical cook gets a similar result to rotisserie cooking.

Now these are birds that we have been cooking in a George Foreman Contact Roaster for many years so we have a fair idea of what comes out nice and what doesn't.

Cook times = ~ 1.5 hours in the Kamado compared to about 1 1/4 hours in the contact roaster.

Verdict. The plain chicken rubbed inside and out with Salt and Rice Bran Oil is the best. The Marinaded one was better than in the Roaster but still too much in the way of additives etc. The Kamado Cooker Versions are better in terms of thin skin, minimum fat and moist taste as compared to the contact roaster. It seems like a slightly lower cook temperature in the Kamado - more 160 degrees C is better than 180 Degrees.

HH

[Buccaneer]

Sure fire way to get a good result is to buy a good ingredient


Last night I noted the UK study on chooks free range vs non free range and it makes the 'fat' argument moot. The non free range bird fats outwigh protein, incredibly! They absolutely slammed the non FR chicken as a threat to consumers who thought they were eating a healthy protein product.
Also in regards to growing families and adults, they (non FR) contain negligable omegas whereas the FR contain high levels and this aids brain development and function, is a great buffer against mental illness.
Non FR have a massive health negative whereas FR have a health benefit.

All this aside from the ethical issues is a mighty persuader to me but the taste is the absolute winning argument.

[Buccaneer]

Oh, and don't tell Davo I;m still hanging around.

[urbangriller]

You see now, I find that BBQ and Beer is a great buffer against mental illness!....Or maybe it is a mental illness?


Ha!

[split]

I have been supprised at the quality of aldi meats. When it first opened i was unsure of buying meat or vegies from it but lately freinds of the family have been buying it and am always shocked to hear that the meal we are eating is from aldi. Alot of the time i think the quality far superior to anything from coles or woolworths.

[Buccaneer]

@Chris

Split, I wouldn't know, never been to Aldi's because there aren;t any in WA.
So to clarify, not knocking Aldi product or even the OP;s diligent test.
Just knocking non Free Range chicken

[paulr]

We do have an Aldi close by, but don't usually buy our meats there (nor the chicken)
We do buy free range (not organic; still too expensive) and I believe you can tell the difference....

[Buccaneer]

We do have an Aldi close by, but don't usually buy our meats there (nor the chicken)
We do buy free range (not organic; still too expensive) and I believe you can tell the difference....

Same here Paul, Big difference.
After years of free range SM bought home some supermarket discount chicken.
I cooked it and at one whiff it went to the least discriminating diner at our place.
She wagged her tail happily and that was the last experiment on non FR....except for wings heavily marinated and spiced on the barbie.
It;s pot luck but usually ok.

[Davo]

Bucc,

I too notice a major difference, especially with the budget cuts..you remember our discussion about when I BBQ's those chicken thigh cutlets and there was no taste in them....I suggested that they might've been old chooks but you suggested otherwise they could've been young chooks grown-up too quick to get any flavour in them.....I kinda agree with that because the meat was tender enough..just no taste.

So we've covered Supermarket Chicken...what about the chicken that comes from the chicken franchises you see in shopping centers..like Red lea Chickens or leonards etc....they have all these different cuts of chicken on display and not in packages so how would you know the origins of the product.it all looks very nice in the windows but is it organic, is is free-range or caged...and if you ask anyone behind the counter..they are likely to tell you anything to get you out of their face so they don't have to answer hard questions.
I have bought many chicken from such a counter with no problems although one of the asian chicken shops in my local center in Sydney (when i used to live there) got fined for unclean premises and so i never went back there.....i actually got stuck into one woman there about handling chicken and money using the same gloves...she had no idea what i was on about......sigh!!
I love chicken but really some of the practices you hear about makes you think twice sometimes....lets face it,wen I was a kid growing up in the 60's & 70's, chicken wasn't a common food here in Australia but like turkey in the USA, it was for special occassions..THEN the Colonel came with multitudes of KFC stores and we were in Fried Chicken heaven....then charcoal chicken and next thing you know, every takeaway outlet was selling chicken,chicken shops and supermarkets.....these poor little creatures had to come from somewhere.....I'd hate to imagine how many chickens are killed and eaten on a daily basis in Australia when I see how much of it is available just in my local area..time many for other cities.

Davo

[Buccaneer]

Not sure if you are on about taste, ethics of practicality and logistics but I'll do my best Davo.

Taste: The SM and I are scr*wed here because we have eaten FR chicken for decades.
When we get a poor quality Supermarket chook it actually stinks to us.

KFC well you just aren't going to taste it because the chicken flesh is simply being used as the taste delivery medium and has pressurised oil with flavours saturated through it.
Other chains of fast food have similar techniques.
I will say that a local franchise has a BBQ roast chicken that we both eat happily and is a fresh juicy product (Chooks for WA peeps).
Lennies and similar are using flavourings on non FR chicken I would assume.
Eaten it once and it had the gritty grainy texture of speed grown chicken so we didn't nuy it again,

Logistics:
You are right Davo, it is happening because it is money driven and efficient, and the general public get trained to accept whatever taste is mainstream.
There is a HUGE commercial opportunity for a massive expansion of the free range industry and it is happening pretty quickly now and has momentum.
Change comes from people forking out just a little extra and noticing the taste difference.
I'd love to say that parents get educated on the health benefits but pathetically that isn't the norm.
The norm is "If I can't SEE a difference then I''ll feed the kids the economic otion and claim I can't afford the slightly more expensive product. That isn't easy to change. That's just people.
I've had charcoal chicken that was delicious and tasted of the fire, damn certain it was not FR so why should I support FR?
Cooked in a myriad of other ways you certainly CAN taste the difference.
So, it is obvious that we can supply all the chicken the country needs by doing it FR, same with the egg industry.
It is a great opportunity commercially and corporations jump on board when they see it is profitable.
As that grows the product price goes down. It is how most industires operate.
This change has to start from the customer however, and it is.


Ethics: I just don't want the karma of supporting that level of abuse to chickens,
I'm not prepared to shell out money that goes into those pockets.
It is easy to say because there is a delicious and slightly more expensive option, and I wonder about my level of hypocrasy if there wasn't?
Do we sometimes fold and buy franchise crap?
Yep, but I'm not a zealot Davo, just well intentioned.

[Davo]

Yes mate, I feel the same way, I'd rather pay a bit more to get FR as we try and get our eggs that way....however....in my current situation where both of us are not working, in order to presently buy in a budget and yet satisfy our meat urge, those cheaper chooks look inviting even though we know deep down, it's not going to be a quality chook.
What I try to do is, if I see a FR or even organic chook on special because the expiry date is getting close, i'll get it and cook it up that nightor the next with more planning while it's sitting in a brine.
It's got me thinking though Bucc, as much as I'd love to see more organic or Free range stock available, there are many low income folks here living on Government pensions and the dole (and it's really bugger all) so those cheap cut caged tasteless poorly grown chickens are what these people can afford.
I often see seniors walking the meat section of the supermarkets in dispair because they can't even afford a pork chop these days...and not only seniors, long term unemployed and other people are in the same boat, that's why you often see them with crap processed food in their trolleys because they can get more bang out of their buck..stuff like chicken medallions or breast fillet all coated in breadcrumbs and other stuff from the frozen section is the easiest and cheapest for them.

I'll tell you Bucc, since this last stint of unemployment, I've really built up a new empathy to those who can no longer afford to buy decent meat....It's bloody sad to see how much our produce has shot up over the years....but wages and other incomes haven't gone up anywhere near as quick...instead of working the 38-40 hour week, people are now working close to 60 hours per week just to keep on top...if they actually are,,,but of course..this is another issue not really suited to here.

Cheers

Davo

[Buccaneer]

Yep we are getting way off on other issues but to summarize:
Life is a cycle, I have been through cycles of great hardship too.
As you said, we didn't always have chicken, it was a luxury. When I was skint, the SM often says it was my period of greatest growth as a cook.
I bought bags of dried beans and seriously cheap cuts of meat, chicken frames and fish wings, mussels and made serious French and Italian out of them.
You have to be adaptible and not insist on eating what you were used to and it is a huge leap forward.

Having compassion for the hard pressed is essential, but no less essential as compassion for other life under our custodianship in my view, so I have to weigh up going without versus saying it's fine for animals to have their skin slowly burned off by excreta so everyone can afford it?

We talk about these issues but the thing that I hate the most is I write letters to pollies about it but nobody else seems to.When we identify these issues, and my personal pain is about Australia's disabled pensioners and mental illness systems, we just think that feeling this way makes us a better person.
Nup.
Doing something about it makes us a better person.
The rest is just sound bytes and we all know that politics is about screwing minorities and the voiceless so climb on board and write your local polly.
It takes a couple of minutes to find their email address and punch out a note.

We all make choices, I'm not imposing a view but simply expressing mine.

[Davo]

hehehe I've kicked my soapbox back under the table so we better get back to chicken marinated or not via Aldi

I've written many a letter to pollies..but it seems that I wonder if many get past the scretary or receptionist...I suspect not

Ok back to DA CHOOK.......

Davo