Poultry

Spices and poultry are natural partners: spices render fat, enhance the texture of the meat, and help preserve, all the while creating new taste sensations and giving a complexity of flavour not possible otherwise. Just about every poultry preparation in existence has some spice element to it. Those that don’t aren’t worth consideration in my mind. chickens, duck, pigeons, squab, quail, pheasants, turkeys and geese are some of the birds that make up the diverse poultry family. Of these, chicken is the most consumed poultry item in Australia today, with duck as second runner. Thankfully, breeders with integrity have restored the glamour appeal of real chicken — free-range, corn-fed birds are now challenging the ill effects wrought on the industry by the battery-farm chook. As Consumers, we must opt for the best quality, and cook with respect, care and a sense of adventure, using spices and flavourings to further enhance the flavour and texture of our poultry. Asian cuisines have been doing this forever. Chicken and duck hold an elevated position on the Asian table, particularly in Chinese cooking, where countless celebratory recipes, using a range of techniques from red-braising to steaming and deep-frying, give these birds the prestige they deserve.