GAULS-CHICKENS
A small flock of Gauloise chickens, the breed of the famous Poulet de Bresse. Only one flock a year produced for the table. @gaulchickens_blackdownhills
Gaul Chickens are born and reared here in the beautiful Blackdown Hills of Devon. The reason for our small holding is to produce healthy, wholesome & tasty chicken, that we can feed our family with confidence.
We chose the slow growing Gauloise breed of Chicken because this is the chicken breed of the famous Poulet de Bresse and in our opinion the best tasting chicken!
We purposely rear only one small flock a year to fill our freezer, this in return lets the land free for wildlife to recover and prosper the rest of the year, so the following year we can do it all over again. However, we produce more than we need and offer the surplus for sale.
Season August 2021
Pre order whilst stock lasts:
If you would like to put your name on the list, we have 40 chickens available for pre-order; for delivery early August 2021. Any questions or please email me, Emma at: emmatindall@hotmail.com
LOCAL DELIVERY… if you are local to East Devon – I will deliver or you can collect.
Email me with your name and address to confirm first.
Pasture-Fed
Whole Gauls-Chicken
Approx Weight: 1.5-2 KG £10.50 per Kg
Our chickens each come with giblets.
ROAST GAULS-CHICKEN RECIPES:
1. TARRAGON & SOURDOUGH BREAD SAUCE
2. DEVONNAISE, GOLDEN POTATOES & SALAD
3. CREAM & MUSHROOMS
Roasted breast on the crown, Legs and wings cooked for longer separately for extra tenderness...
4. DOUBLE SIMPLE LEMON
– also at the end, Christopher Hirst, discovers gourmet super-birds.
Come with me and let the chickens out on this stunning morning!
“ Lets give the chicken the respect it deserves as a high end food product, maybe not to be enjoyed more than once a week or two – Lets heed the accumulated wisdom of the past and return to traditional methods of rearing our farm animals.”
As a nation, we’ve grown used to eating a lot of chicken. It’s tasty, lean and versatile so it’s easy to understand why it’s so popular. Unfortunately, popularity has encouraged intensive industrial scale farming practices that do not respect the wellbeing of the birds that have been genetically engineered to grow big and fat as quickly as possible… from hatch to slaughter within 5 weeks, fed on get fat quick processed GM grain pellet feeds only.
Pasture-fed Gauls-chicken is nutrient-dense as a result of the fresh, natural diet of the chickens. They are allowed to roam free actively grazing on vitamin A, E and protein-rich pasture, eating seeds, insects, and earthworms found in the field, spending all of their time out in the fresh Devon air and sunshine.
Pasture-fed chickens have double the levels of beta-carotene and selenium, which are all powerful antioxidants. They also have higher levels of Omega-3 fat… which is the good fat, important for healthy heart and extremely important for brain function and development.
“PASTURED-FED MEANS – ANIMAL WELFARE, NUTRITIOUS FOOD & BETTER FLAVOUR”
Wilding 2018 by Isabella Tree
We should not be cutting out animal fats from our diet, we should simply be taking care to eat the right sort of healthy fat… a ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 no more than 6:1
The human brain is half fat, and one quarter is made of omega-3. Since the body cannot make its own omega-3, it has to derive it from food, but there are very few foods that contain it. Oily blue fish like tuna, mackerel, sardines have high levels of omega-3 which is great, however fish stocks around the world are crashing and farmed fish like salmon is fed on unsustainable wild fish. Pasture-fed meat is in contrast, highly sustainable.
Animals that evolved to eat grass, struggle to metabolize grain in their get-fat-quick feeds given to them –
our human bodies in return, also struggle to metabolize this kind of fat. Very logical, common sense if you take out any monetary reasons.
It is now clear that eating grain-fed animal fat can be detrimental to human health, here is where the links to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancers, allergies and depressions really are…
To give our chickens the best life they can have is the least we can do – to respect and appreciate the food they provide us with.
REVIEW:
“The taste is simply incredible. It has a rich, more intense flavour than you might have ever associated with a chicken, this is chicken as it should be.
We had 6 meals out of this fabulous bird and then made a litre of stock/broth from the bones…win win win.” ( should of seen the happy face my 7yr old daughter had when eating a mid week chicken bone broth with peas and mini pasta shells)
10/10 Kate Pearse
A REAL HAPPY MEAL
happy animals make nutritious vit. packed food for our human bodies – and in return makes us feel happy.
Let real food be your medicine.
1. TARRAGON & SOURDOUGH BREAD SAUCE
SERVES 4
INGREDIENTS:
/Gauls-Chicken, 1.75kg
/Garlic, 1 large head.
/Butter, 25g melted.
/25g Tarragon, fresh bunch.
/Double cream, 1 tsp.
/150ml Giblet Stock or Chicken Stock.
(see below how to make Giblet stock. 1 hr in advance)
/Sourdough bread sauce (see below )
METHOD:
Preheat oven to 200ºC/400°F/Gas mark 6. Break the head of garlic into separate cloves and peel half of them. Remove the leaves from the tarragon stalks. Season the cavity of the chicken with salt and pepper and then push in the peeled garlic cloves, the tarragon stalks and half of the leaves. Brush the skin of the chicken with a little melted butter and season with salt and pepper. Brush the base of the roasting tin with a little butter, put the rest of the garlic cloves into the centre of the tin and rest the chicken on top.
Roast in the oven for 1.15 hours.Remove the chicken from the oven and tip all the juices, garlic and tarragon from the cavity back into the roasting tin. Pick off a few of the tarragon leaves and set them aside. Put the chicken onto a carving board, cover it with foil and leave it to rest for at least 15mins while you make the gravy.
GRAVY: Put the roasting tin over a medium-high heat, add the stock and mash the garlic cloves lightly with a potato masher to release the cooked puree from the the skins. Boil until reduced by half, rubbing all the caramelised juices off the base of the tin with a wooden spoon. Add the rest of the butter and the cream and strain into a warm sauce boat. Chop the remaining fresh tarragon leaves and stir in.
Carve the chicken and add the juices from the tray to the gravy.
Divide the chicken between warmed plates and scatter over some of the reserved cooked tarragon leaves from the cavity.
Serve on its own with Sourdough bread sauce…
but good too with some Golden potatoes and a Little gem lettuce salad.
SOURDOUGH BREAD SAUCE
1x large Onion, peeled. 6x Cloves. 1x Bay leaf. 6x Black peppercorns. 450ml full-fat Milk. 110g Crustless Sourdough bread whizzed to crumbs. 40g Butter. Salt, Black pepper freshly ground, Nutmeg a grating.
Stud the onion all over with the cloves, then place into a saucepan along with the bay leaf, peppercorns and milk. Bring the mixture to the boil, remove the pan from the heat and set to cool for 15 minutes. Remove the onion, bay leaf and peppercorns, then stir in the breadcrumbs. Return the pan to the heat and cook very gently for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally until the breadcrumbs have absorbed all the liquid. Stir in the butter and season, to taste, with salt and freshly ground black pepper. If you have nutmeg a little grating
would not go a miss.
GOLDEN POTATOES
Cut 750g of peeled floury potatoes into 4cm pieces. Put them into a pan of well-salted water (1 teaspoon of salt per 600ml of water), bring to the boil and simmer until tender – about 7 mins. Drain well and leave until the steam has died down. Heat 40g of butter and 3 tablespoons of sunflower oil in a large, heavy-based frying pan. It’s important not to overcrowd the pan, if you don’t have a large enough pan - just use two smaller ones.
Add the potatoes and fry them over a medium heat for about 10 mins. turning them over as they brown, until they are crisp, golden brown and sandy – the outside of the potatoes should break off a little as you sauté them to give them a nice crumbly, crunchy crust. Season with a little sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and serve.
LITTLE GEM LETTUCE SALAD with dressing,
Break any soft lettuce such as hothouse lettuce, Tom thumb or Little Gem into leaves, wash them well and dry them off in a salad spinner. Just before serving, whisk together 1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar, 4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 of a teaspoon of caster sugar and a large pinch of Garlic salt. (sea salt in a jar left with a couple of garlic cloves overnight at least, will flavour the salt)
Drizzle this over the leaves, toss together very gently and serve.
GIBLETS STOCK
4x rashers streaky bacon, chopped. 1x Gauls-Chicken giblets. 1x small onion, chopped. 1x carrot, chopped.
2x celery stalks, chopped. 1.2 litres water. 2x bay leaves. 6x black peppercorns.
Fry the bacon, giblets and vegetables in a little oil until golden brown. Add the water, bay leaves and peppercorns and simmer for 1 hour.
Strain through a sieve and set aside to use for Gravy
CHICKEN STOCK – for 2nd Meal.
/ makes 1.75 litres, to use for a 2nd meal, like Paella rice dishes, Hot pot, Noodles, Soups, Stews and all things gravy.
Bones and carcass from a previously roasted 1.5kg Gauls-Chicken.
1x large Carrot, chopped. 2x Celery sticks, sliced. 2x Leeks, cleaned and slice. 2x Bay leaves.
2x sprigs of thyme. 2.25 litres of water.Put all the ingredients into a large pan with a lid and bring just to the boil. Now turn the heat down and leave to simmer gently for 2 hours. Strain the stock through a sieve and use as required. If not using straight away, leave to cool, then refrigerate or freeze for later use.
Instagram @devonnaise
2. DEVONNAISE, GOLDEN POTATOES & SALAD
SERVES 4
INGREDIENTS:
/Gauls-Chicken, 1.75kg
/Garlic, 1 large head.
/Butter, 25g melted.
/Double cream, 1 tsp.
/150ml Giblet Stock or Chicken Stock.
(see above how to make Giblet stock 1hr in advance)
/Devonnaise, Jar of.
/Sea Salt.
/Black Pepper freshly ground.
/Potatoes, 750gm –
floury ones are best like Golden Wonder, or all rounders like Wilja, Maris Pipers.
(see above – Golden potatoes)
/Little Gem lettuce, 1 or 2. –
any soft green lettuce such as hothouse or Tom thumb
(see above – Little gem lettuce salad)
METHOD:
Preheat oven to 200ºC/400°F/Gas mark 6. Break the head of garlic into separate cloves and peel half of them. Season the cavity of the chicken with salt and pepper and then push in the peeled garlic cloves. Butter the skin of the chicken and season with salt and pepper. Brush the base of the roasting tin with a little butter, put the rest of the garlic cloves into the centre of the tin and rest the chicken on top. Roast in the oven for 1.15 hours.
Remove the chicken from the oven and tip all the juices, and garlic from the cavity back into the roasting tin. Put the chicken onto a carving board, cover it with foil and leave it to rest for at least 15mins while you make the gravy.
GRAVY: Put the roasting tin over a medium-high heat, add the Giblets stock and mash the garlic cloves lightly with a potato masher to release the cooked puree from the the skins. Boil until reduced by half, rubbing all the caramelised juices off the base of the tin with a wooden spoon. Add the rest of the butter and the cream, strain into a warm sauce boat.
Carve the chicken and add the juices from the tray to the gravy.
Divide the chicken between warmed plates.
Serve with Devonnaise,
Golden potatoes and Green lettuce salad.
REVIEW:
“This week for a family of four, we’ve had a roast, a large chicken & leek pie,… and tonight it’s a chicken lasagne with garden greens!”
5/5 Mike Marsh
3. CREAM & MUSHROOMS
INGREDIENTS
Gauls-Chicken, joint the legs, thighs and wings tips. Breast left on the crown.
70g butter
Half an onion, studded with about 10 cloves
Half and onion, roughly sliced
1 whole head of garlic sliced through its waist, upper part discarded
200g closed cup white mushrooms.
2 tbsp plain flour
175ml dry white wine
500–750ml double cream (the volume depends on your pan because you need to cover the chicken pieces)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
METHOD:
Melt the butter in a cast iron casserole or pan large enough to take the chicken pieces in one layer with space for the onion and mushrooms. Once foaming, add the chicken pieces, neck and wingtips, season them in the pan. Cook the chicken gently until lightly browned on both sides. Take care here – you want to lightly brown the chicken to the colour of a straw hat; if you get it too dark, the meat will toughen.
Add the studded onion, chopped onion and garlic, and evenly spoon over the flour.
Add the mushrooms.Increase the heat for a moment, and then deglaze the pan with the wine. Turn the chicken in the wine and flour, and then pour over the Cream to cover the meat. Season to taste.
Turn down the heat to low and cook uncovered for 45 minutes.
Breast on the crown, sprinkle a bit of salt inside and some butter on the top before placing onto the oven at 200°C for 35mins. till cooked. Rest for 15 minutes before cutting away the breast off the bone, keep the wing bone for French cut.
Plate the chicken pieces and breast. Sieve the sauce into a warm jug and spoon over the chicken.
Serve with a crusty baguette to mop up the sauce
and your favourite bottle of wine.XTRAS to serve
Wild mushrooms – Field, Chestnut, Penny Bun / Porcini/ Ceps – separately cooked in butter.
Garlic cloves 30 of them pan fried in butter and seasoned with thyme.
Fresh tarragon garnish.
See French chef cooking his version, click below for video clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQI-6fvkXuc
4. DOUBLE SIMPLE LEMON
Smear with butter and season liberally with salt and pepper; cut a lemon in two, squeeze juice over the bird and put the halves in the cavity with several sprigs of thyme and tarragon; pop in the oven for 1.15 Hrs at 200C, baste after 30mins; leave to rest for 15 minutes before serving.
Done,.
Winner, winner…
Michel “ Barney” Barnier. Top Cockerel :)
Forget the £2.99 broiler.
Christopher Hirst discovers how gourmet super-birds are carving out an appetising niche.
*Gauls-Chicken are Poulet de Bresse
breed of chickens, pastured-fed & reared in
Membury, Devon.
Independent, Saturday 19 March 2011
The news that a south London butcher is selling chickens at £30 apiece made the headlines this week. Reared in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, the free-range birds grow to about 4kg in 14 weeks. Selling for £7.95 per kilo, these super-chicks are eight times as expensive as an average supermarket bird. Inevitably, they are described by the butcher as "the Rolls-Royce of chickens".
And there are more expensive chickens on sale in London shops. In a comparative tasting, I discovered that these posh birds do merit their stratospheric price tags. They would not seem so staggeringly expensive if we viewed chicken as a rare treat. The problem is that we have become accustomed to chicken as an everyday staple. To achieve that price, most chickens have become bland mediocrities.
Roping in my wife as sous-chef, we cooked six free-range poules de luxe in the manner advocated in Simon Hopkinson's book Roast Chicken and Other Stories: smear with butter and season liberally with salt and pepper; cut a lemon in two, squeeze juice over the bird and put the halves in the cavity with several sprigs of thyme and tarragon; pop in the oven for 15 minutes at 230C, baste, then for a further 45 minutes at 190C; leave to rest for 15 minutes.
The procedure proved less easy than it sounds. Aside from tending three ovens (one requisitioned in a neighbour's house), we had to keep adjusting the times for the Suffolk giant and a petite Poule de Bresse. Tempers frayed as we scuttled up and down the street, lugging scalding hot casseroles full of London's priciest birds. An aroma that was noticeably more mouth-watering than the smell of an average chicken was merely the first compensation for our labours. They proved excellent in a surprising number of ways.
For starters, carving was a doddle. Though I'm no maestro of the carving knife, it was easy to produce long, evenly sized strips. There was none of the crumbly dryness or floppy damp that you get with cheap chicken. The taste of the posh birds, whether breast, leg or even skin, was sensational. Simultaneously rich and delicate, the flavours resonated on the palate, leaving a long, delicious aftertaste. The thick, sticky jelly exuded by the carcasses promised glorious stock from the carcasses.
The cliché "chicken as it used to taste" sprang irresistibly to our lips. It could even be true. I'm old enough to remember when chicken was so expensive that it was reserved for Easter and Christmas, but I wouldn't swear that it tasted quite as good as these expensive fowls.
Hugh Fearnley-Whitingstall insists they're worth the investment. "An organic chicken is still considerably cheaper than supermarket sirloin steak. I know which one I'd rather eat. Don't forget you'll be getting two or three meals from the chicken and just one from the steak."
The most exceptional bird in our tasting was the Poulet de Bresse, Though the favoured bird of many top chefs, including Heston Blumenthal, who used it when he tackled roast chicken in his TV series In Search of Perfection, very few of the 1.2 million poulets grown annually in a strictly controlled area are exported from France. The red crown, white feathers and blue feet of this classic item of haute cuisine are said to represent the French tricolour, which might explain why the bird is sold with head and feet intact.
At £30 for a 1.6kg bird, it may seem a form of nourishment restricted to plutocrats. I could say the price is an affordable luxury when compared to the cost of a restaurant meal. A better reason is that it was, by some distance, the best chicken I've ever had. Sheer perfection.
But the bigger British birds were not far behind in the taste stakes. The giants grown by Phil Truin in Bury St Edmunds manage to combine good flavour with sufficient meat for six people. "All are produced from chicks grown literally in his back yard," said Garry Moen, who sells them in Clapham, south London. "He kills, hangs and plucks them himself, so he only does 120 a week. Actually, that's all his wife allows. That's why he does 3kg to 4kg birds. It's the only way he will get the profit."
At Lidgate's, the Holland Park butcher that caters to the well-heeled of west London, Richard Lattimore says: "People definitely more conscious of what they're buying. Slaughterhouses can be terrible, and it affects the quality. If an animal is stressed before being killed, the muscles tense up. Each week, we sell a fair number of chickens at about £22 each from Otter Valley Poultry in Devon."
The wealthy of London may be able to afford classy chickens but producers of free-range birds have been affected by the international increase in grain prices. "Though I'm basically optimistic, it is a challenging time," said Chris Frederick, who rears free-range chickens in Roydon, Essex. He grows two types: a smaller chicken akin to Poulet de Bresse called Label Anglais and based on the Cornish Red breed, which takes 80 to 100 days to reach maturity, and a larger bird called Special Reserve, based on a rustic French breed, which takes 75 to 85 days. "Because the cost of feed shot up by 50 per cent in the past year, we've cut back on production by 10 per cent."
The problem of feed costs is worse for free-range producers because their birds live far longer than broiler chickens. "The average life of a broiler bird is 38 days," said Mr Frederick. "They're going to slaughter as we're putting our birds out to grass."
With the recession, both domestic and commercial customers are trading down to cheaper chickens. "For years we supplied a top West End hotel," said Mr Frederick. "But recently the chef said, 'We've stopped buying premium products'. Of course, the consumer will still be charged for premium products."
He said domestic customers have a misconception about mid-range chickens. "The phrase 'corn-fed chicken' conjures up an image of a chicken outside pecking at a cob of corn. But life for most corn-fed chickens is nothing like that. They have the same life as a standard broiler but they're fed maize in their diet."
Disappointed by the taste of cheaper chickens, I very rarely eat them but the taste of these expensive birds came as a revelation. Eaten warm, the herb-infused meat was so delicate that it seemed a shame even to put gravy on it. Our tendency to smother chicken in sauces and trimmings could explain why we have been content to swallow rubbish birds.
Chris Frederick agreed that restraint on the plate brings out the best in his chickens. "Personally I just eat roast chicken with potatoes and bread sauce and they are fantastic. As I get older, I find bread sauce the perfect accompaniment. You need very little else."
Forget the British habit of having a massive pile on your plate. Just stick to the chicken, but make it a good one and you'll be clucking with joy.
*Poulet De Bresse
Rhone-Alpes, France
Retailer: Harvey Nichols, Knightsbridge, London SW1
Price per kilo: £19.50
Weight: 1.60 kilos (includes head, guts and legs)
Price of bird: £31.20
Tasting notes: "Fantastic flavour with great finesse. Very hard to stop nibbling bits. Only drawback is there isn't a great deal of it."
Marks: 9.5/10
*Gauls-Chicken are Poulet de Bresse
breed of chickens, pastured-fed & reared in
Membury, Devon.
Otter Valley Poultry
Honiton, Devon
Retailer: C Lidgate, Holland Park, London W11
Price per kilo: £9.20
Weight: 1.75 kilos
Price of bird: £17.84
Tasting notes: "A classic roast chicken with really sweet, juicy breast meat. Legs are richly flavoured, somewhat like duck."
Marks: 9/10
Fosse Meadows
Lutterworth, Leicestershire
Retailer: Allens of Mayfair, Mount Street, London W1
Price per kilo: £7.95
Weight: 2.11 kilos
Price of bird: £18.09
Tasting notes: "Succulent with great depth of flavour and long aftertaste. Legs have good meaty flavour like guinea fowl."
Marks: 9/10
Phil Truin
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Retailer: M Moen & Sons, Clapham, London SW4
Price per kilo: £7.95
Weight: 3.69 kilos
Price of bird: £29.37
Tasting notes: "Breast has lovely resonant flavour with a hint of mushrooms on palate. Really impressive for size."
Marks: 8.5/10
Packlington Poultry
Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire
Retailer: Ginger Pig, Borough Market, London SE1
Price per kilo: £6.45
Weight: 2 kilos
Price of bird: £12.90
Tasting notes: "Looks outweigh taste. Lacking in character and depth compared to other free-range birds. Only a brief aftertaste."
Marks: 6/10
Label Anglais Special Reserve
Roydon, Essex
Retailer: M Moen & Sons, Clapham, London SW4
Price per kilo: £6.95
Weight: 2.77 kilos
Price of bird: £19.29
Tasting notes: "Very delicate flavour with moist, melt-in-the-mouth texture and good long aftertaste."
Marks: 8.5/10