Unusual experience cooking chicken

loveisdivine

Ok so last night I was making coq au vin to have for dinner tonight. Something I have made a thousand times, I was using chicken thighs and drumsticks, which I have also used a thousand times and they were the same free range ones we always buy.

I noticed before I put them in the pan that the open joints where a little redder/bloodier than usual, however when I put them in the pan and started browning them off they started to seep a lot of blood. Im not talking about red juices that you sometimes get with chicken. I mean full on dark red viscous blood. It was coming out of the open joints and from the middle of the chicken peices. As I was moving the chicken around the pan I ended up with streaks of it around the sides of the pan, I noticed it more because the inside of the pan is cream enamel.

Has anyone ever had this before? I'm not squeamish, and I love my beef rare! So I know the difference between juices, and actual blood. I continued browning them for a good ten minutes and it just seemed to get worse!

Needless to say I didnt use them in the end. Were now having vegetable au vin

Mr Magnolia

It may not have been hung which would allow the blood to run out. Don't know how long commercial chickens are hung but I'd guess a day. Get back onto your butcher.

Mellor

Mr Magnolia wrote: »

It may not have been hung which would allow the blood to run out. Don't know how long commercial chickens are hung but I'd guess a day. Get back onto your butcher.

I think they soak chickens in salt water for a little while to clean it up as opposed to hanging them like larger animals. Doesn;t take very long at all (based on cleaning similar sized birds)

OP, when you refer to the open joints, you mean the reddish ends of the bone where it has been cut. This is the exposed marrow, and sometimes blood seeps out. I think when chickens are frozen the marrow expands and blood can be "pushed" into the meat. Thats why you sometimes seen blood stains in the meat around the bones, even though blood flows through veins not the muscle.

It probably a case that it wasn't rinsed/soaked as throughly, and prehaps frozen which created the dark red joints. But its not dangerous, as its being cooked throughly - but might not be the beest visually. If it was me I'd prob over cook it slightly to be safe.

CJhaughey

When they kill chickens commercially they hang them up by the feet and cut the artery in the top of the mouth, this allows the chicken to bleed and reduces the amount of blood in the carcass.
If the bleeding step is missed or incorrectly performed then the amount of blood in the chicken would appear to be excessive.
I suspect that this is what happened to the chicken that you bought.
Its fine to eat but the aesthetics aren't great.