I just asked my husband, who does the vast majority of the cooking, and he says that actually is how he’d describe it. I’ve only had the misfortune of trying to chew this stuff once already cut down (such as in butter chicken).
And it seems it’s likely linked to growing too fast, which I think has to be a factor given the size of these things. We’ve had no issues with the packages with the smaller breasts, only these monsters.
We pay for the convenience of this distributor, it gives us a flat rate all year for meat but also comes in around the upper end of pricing for local grocery stores. We will reject these oversized units and perhaps ask for replacement/refund.
We’d actually never come across the term for this before, but today we cooked two and one is inedible. Interesting timing on this thread!
If you notice before cooking. Salvage by using another cooking method. Submerged in a liquid or sauce.
Long slow cook.
Then chop and pull for a type shredded meat. Season appropriately.
Thing is, these are delivered frozen, which makes it very hard to tell. We typically just defrost and bake or throw onto the BBQ with spices or sauce. Because we have a feeezer-full of stuff we often decide midday what we want and defrost in warm water and cook that evening. Rarely marinade.
We’ve been avoiding eating these after the first two bad ones, but they’re kind of all that’s left in the chicken breast pile in the freezer, so have had to face them! We have just been throwing them out, as we are noticing once cooked.
The distributor does have some form of satisfaction guarantee, but other than one single poorly cut steak a few years back, we’ve been incredibly happy with the quality over ten years! So we’ve never pushed back but will for these. We go through a lot of chicken in a year, so this is just not acceptable to us.
I have also noticed that there’s a strong correlation (not 100% though) with the overlarge breasts, that are also far more common in the cheaper mega packs. To the point that when buying at the store, I’ll select for packages that are visually on the medium-to-small size. In @Saint_Cad’s cite upthread, there is also a mention that it’s more common in larger and older birds. So we’re not the only ones to notice a trend.
Yeah, that is rough. At the store, I can gently apply pressure (nothing scary looking or damaging, I promise) to test, and there’s often some visual discoloration or banding you can at least visually check by, but that’s out for frozen options. And I do a LOT of marinating/bringing, or more recently, prep and season the breasts or thighs, vacuum seal, and freeze for later defrosting and cooking.
Long slow cooking made no difference for me, they were just tough. Hard to cut, even with a sharp knife, tough.
Pretty noticeable if you only cook your chicken low and slow and are accustomed to it cutting like butter. It looks entirely correct, seems identical in every way, when you cut it it’s tough, when you chew it it’s noticeably tough.
For me it was only from the Walmart I noticed it. Now I just buy a whole chicken, to avoid the issue, when I really do want breasts.
Huh. I think I’ve seen that condition once. I thought it was freezer damage.
I mostly buy whole chickens, and i mostly buy high-end chicken that claims to be humanely reared. It’s obviously not a major problem in my chicken supply. I eat roast chicken every week or two. (And then cook something with the leftovers, ginger& scallion or curry, usually.) And i sometimes buy a package of breasts or thighs, not not too often.
I think any solution to your problem is either going to cost more (a different animal, or a pricier bird) or is going to involve eating less meat. (I had hard dry beans once, too, but those beans had been stored for at least 5 years.)
I had a few “woody” bad packages from Foster Farms a few years ago. I’d never heard the term or experienced it before. Like described above, very fibrous breasts, almost gristly. I thought that it was some sort of freezer-burn, even though they were not supposed to have been frozen previously. I ended up cutting around the tough bits and throwing them out.
Recently in the past month or two, I’ve had a couple of bad rotisserie chickens from Costco. Not woody, but very off in texture and taste, like it was simultaneously over-brined and under-cooked. I think it’s put me off buying them for awhile.
The texture was odd, the breasts didn’t separate or tear along the muscle fibers as normal, but basically tore off into giggly clumps, or “glumps” as seems the best descriptor. It wasn’t tough to chew, but just seemed more like a soggy chicken nugget.