Food, travel, recipe & sights » Old hen

Old hen

*Warning – chicken carcass ahead. No nice food photos, yet.*

I am very delighted to find old hens in the supermarket today. Do you know that it is a rare ‘commodity’? Usually, all the old hens are sold to regulars like restaurants and hawkers. One has to pre-order them from the wet markets if needed.

Why old hens? Because old hens are very much sought after to slow boil superior chicken stock. Superior chicken stock is the basic of all expensive soups like sharksfin, Monk jump over the wall and all those double-boiled soups.

The old hen I bought is twice the price of a normal chicken. It costs me RM12 per chicken. I was snapping away with the camera whilst my hubby was helping me to chop the hen into two.
oldhen2
Old hens have very hard bones, hence, I need a man’s strength. Their flesh is too hard for normal dishes but they give a sweeter and tastier flavour to soups.

Hens are considered old when they have slowed down in laying eggs or their eggs have grown too small. I do know quite a lot about hens, chickens and castrated cocks as my mom used to rear some when I was small. See these unformed eggs in the inner parts of the hen?
oldhen

Read about castrated cocks and chicken rice from my old blog. Click on the ‘I need to hear from you’ to read the interesting comments about making chicken rice and how a cock is castrated.

Posted by on May 19th, 2005 under Ingredients

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No Responses to “Old hen”

  1. romantic Says:
    May 19th, 2005 at 7:39 pm

    Does anyone eat those unformed eggs?? Sounds like a food item for “Fear Factor”

  2. Angelic Grace Says:
    May 19th, 2005 at 8:27 pm

    Poor old hen. She got killed before she produced her kids.

  3. lilian Says:
    May 19th, 2005 at 9:58 pm

    Angelic Grace – hahaha, my mom used to say lau keh boh boh lor euwng, Old hen useless, so might as well kill it. Poor hen indeed, after so many years of service kena enter the cooking pot.

    Romantic – I ate them. It is just like egg yolk but less ‘powdery’. Of course, after I cooked them.

  4. kris Says:
    May 19th, 2005 at 10:26 pm

    wah! very interesting!

  5. Ah Lian Says:
    May 19th, 2005 at 11:18 pm

    eeeeehhh…so geli lah

  6. Piggy Says:
    May 19th, 2005 at 11:18 pm

    This is interesting. I’ve not seen those unformed eggs before. The price of the old hen is expensive though.. ;-)

  7. lilian Says:
    May 20th, 2005 at 4:14 pm

    Piggy – It gives much tastier and oomph soups. Worth the price, I would say. And we can simmer for hours and the meat will not ‘melt’.

    Ah Lian – hahaha, geli hor?

    kris – These are all my old experiences so I like to write it down before I myself forget them. Thanks for dropping by.

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