River Cottage Spring Steven Lamb - Your questions answered

Date Published:

11/06/2008

River Cottage host, Steven Lamb, answers all your home grown queries from butchery to bees

Can you tell me how to prepare a chicken? Once it's killed how do you best remove the innards? I have kept various breeds of poultry for many years and fancy having a go at eating my own.

There is a real sense of achievement in preparing one of your own chickens to eat and I suggest you approach it in two phases.
Firstly cut off the feet and head, leaving the neck as long as possible on the carcass. Turn the chicken over onto its breast. Cut the skin up the back of the neck and open it up. Remove the neck as close to the body as possible either by cutting it or simply pulling and twisting it.

It may be useful to have a cloth to hand in order to get a firm grip. Set the neck to one side. Remove the windpipe and crop from the neck skin. The windpipe looks tubular and ribbed. The crop is positioned to one side and contains the grains and grass from the chicken's last meal. You can discard these items. Loosen the organs from the top down by getting your fingers in between the carcass and innards.

Phase two begins by turning the chicken onto its back. Pinch a fold of skin above the vent and make an incision with a sharp knife. Don't cut too deeply because you are trying to avoid piercing into the chicken's innards. It should just be enough to cut through the skin and fat layers. Once you have done this you should be able to carefully cut around the vent making sure that the lower bowel remains intact. Next, insert your fingers to loosen the innards, right up to the top (which you have already loosened). You should feel the ribcage on the outside of your fingers while you continue to loosen all the way round.

You should then be able to pull all the innards out in one handful. Examine the innards taking care to not to break the bile gland - this often looks a green / yellow colour. Remove the liver, gizzard, heart, spleen and place with the neck. Carefully open the gizzard and peel back the inner layer removing any stones. The gizzard is often called the 'chicken's teeth' and stones are sometimes swallowed to help break down their food. Examine the bird inside to make sure there are no traces left. You are now ready to cook.

What is the 'little-known' law that entitles us to plots of land? And how do we go about lobbying the council to be granted this right?

You are referring to the 1908 Small Holdings and Allotment Act and you should find this link really useful in getting the ball rolling.

Should I be requesting local crayfish as opposed to those American ones when I go out to eat?

This is a tricky one but I personally would insist on making sure I ate the American crayfish species. My problem with this, though, is that it could possibly be creating a demand and therefore fuelling the problem.

The American Signal Crayfish was imported in the 1970s for the restaurant trade so that issue of demand is already there. The main issue is not really in the eating of them but the fact that they cause a whole host of problems, not only for our native species - the White Claw Crayfish - but for rivers up and down the country. The American species introduce a crayfish 'plague' which spreads among the natives, killing them and leaving only the American Signals behind.

The Signal crayfish is bigger and much more aggressive than the native species, which it out-competes, and can climb and walk considerable distances. It is damaging to plant, fish and invertebrate life and can have a devastating effect on river banks. Unfortunately it is a difficult job getting rid of these 'alien' crayfish. Many have tried and failed, due to the Signal Crayfish's incredible breeding rate, which makes eradication tricky.

The best approach is to try and reduce their numbers to levels where they are not a nuisance. The most important thing is to prevent them from spreading any further. Some leading scientific groups and conservationists feel any publicity is bad publicity, but with dedication and the right guidance there is progress to be made. Many also feel that the best and only way to save the native crayfish is to ban its sale.

So in short, by only eating American Crayfish you are on the right track but this would be a small step in the right direction.

Is Hugh scared of the bees? He looked petrified in the episode!

I wouldn't say he was scared but let's just put it that he has a healthy respect for them! I know his love of honey far outweighs his fear of being stung - besides, he was in the safe hands of Dave Wiscombe and Cat Streatfeild, our resident bee experts.

Is the vegetarian suffering from any side effects of reintroducing meat into her diet? Or is it too gradual for that?

Susan is fine and is feeling no side effects since eating meat - although we wouldn't expect her to really. She achieved her desire to re-introduce meat into her diet reasonably quickly with only a couple of stuttering steps. Ray Smith our resident master butcher was quick to realise that it was meat that had sat in a pool of its own blood at a supermarket that put Susan off eating meat originally. Once Susan was aware how good meat looked if it was dealt with properly, it didn't really take her too long to take the next step of eating it.

Read Steven's answers to previous River Cottage episode questions.