How to slaughter a goose at home: tips and techniques. The technique of correct slaughter, plucking and cutting goose carcass

09.10.2019

Content:

We are talking about cutting a goose after it has been plucked. Unless, of course, you are a follower of Panikovsky from the novel "The Twelve Chairs", which barely took his feet, escaping from the crowd. After all, he got goose meat not in a store, but in other people's yards. If you are a "comrade" of this literary hero or grow it yourself, you will have to pluck the bird first.

Plucking

There are several ways to pluck a goose carcass.

Mechanical. This is the most fast way. It uses various electromechanical devices.
Manual. The most time-consuming, but the result is the highest quality. It can be done in two ways:

dry (when they are going to use feather and down in the future);
wet (the carcass is dipped in boiling water).

Steam. Accelerates manual plucking. To do this, you need to do one of the following:

hold the bird over the steam;
use a steam generator;
steam with an iron.

With manual methods, the sequence of work is usually as follows. First, get rid of large flight feathers. When removed, pull them in the direction of growth. Then they move to the back, then to the abdomen.

Carcass preparation

Regardless of whether you yourself rid the goose of feathers or have already acquired a plucked one, you will need to carefully examine it. It is almost impossible to pluck a goose without leaving stumps, broken feathers, and little hairs. All this will greatly spoil the look of the dish prepared from it.

You can get rid of all this using the old-fashioned method - singeing and pulling out the remaining stumps with tweezers or platypuses. Previously, the roasting of the carcass was carried out over a burning burner gas stove. This is not very convenient. The goose is heavy, and then the whole stove will be stained. Now more often use miniature gas burners.

Before roasting, the goose carcass can be rolled in flour. So it will be drier, small hairs will burn better. After singeing, clean the goose from the resulting soot (you can scrape it with a knife), wash it, dry it with disposable towels.

Start cutting. Just check out first anatomical structure birds. It is shown in the figure below.

Knowing the anatomy of birds will help you understand the giblets that you will be extracting. And when cutting not a store goose, but a farm or domestic goose, you will have to do this.

Cutting stages

After plucking and singeing, it is necessary to remove parts of the carcass that are unsuitable for eating and remove the insides. This operation is called gutting.

gutting

If the head was not removed during slaughter, then cut it off. But it is the head, not the neck. Therefore, remove it approximately at the level of the second vertebra of the neck.
Cut off the end piece elbow joint, wings.
Also cut off the paws along the joint.
Get rid of the trachea and esophagus. This can be done by pulling them out through the neck or after extracting the giblets.
To extract the insides, cut the carcass. They do it differently. Can be cut lengthwise. With this cut, it is more convenient to get the giblets. In this case, it is necessary to cut along the abdomen from the back of the goose to the front.

And you can make a cross section. It is done in the lower abdomen, under the abdomen. So the carcass will look neater, it is easier to stuff it later. But if the whole goose is not supposed to be baked, then the appearance is no longer important.

In any case, cut carefully. The main thing is not to damage internal organs.

Get the offal. Make sure they don't break through. This is especially true of the gallbladder. If it spills, then consider that the goose is spoiled, since everything where the bile gets will be bitter. This is where knowledge of bird anatomy comes in handy.

Offal preparation

Separate the liver from the gallbladder very carefully.
Free the stomach from pebbles and any other evil spirits. Scrape off the hard inner film. Scald it with boiling water, then it will be easier to remove.
Cleanse your heart from all sorts of films.
If you have not removed the trachea before, then feel for it in the upper part and pull it out.
Get rid of excess fat. It doesn't mean throw away. It must be carefully cut and melted. You can freeze to collect more, and then reheat. Goose fat is used to make pâtés.
Cut the claws from the paws and remove the skin. To endow this operation, also use boiling water.

Meat ripening

After gutting and cleaning offal before eating them, time must pass. It is called meat ripening.

Therefore, after drying the goose carcass with a towel, put it together with offal in a large container. Cover with a towel, meaning you don't need to seal it, and keep it in the basement or refrigerator for two days.

Some hang carcasses on hooks in cellars. Others put them in muslin bags and hang them up as well. But the last option will be expensive. Muslin can be used in other ways. You don't see fabric like this very often. By the way, it got its name from the city of Mosul in Iraq, where it was invented. In the seventeenth century in Europe, elegant dresses were sewn from it.

Dividing into portions

Goose can be baked whole or cooked in portions. In the second case, you will have to cut it into smaller pieces. This makes it easier to fit in a frying pan or pot for stewing.

AT Soviet time in the standard trade, it was proposed to butcher the carcasses of birds as shown in the figures below.

Here on seme "A" it is shown how to divide the carcasses of a smaller bird - chickens and ducks. And on the “b” scheme, the larger one is geese and turkeys. In addition, then a piece of the neck had to be attached to each portioned piece. If it was a goose, then the neck was divided into eight pieces. In times of shortage and average constant prices, it was more profitable trade organizations.

At home, the bird is usually divided into smaller pieces. So, as shown in the bottom photo.

The bottom row shows offal that can be used in food. When dividing the bird into pieces, try to cut along the articular cartilage.

Having cut the goose as described here, you can start cooking it. But that is another story.

The shelf life of goose meat, as well as its taste and nutritional properties directly depend on compliance with the rules of slaughter and processing of meat. First of all, you need to prepare the birds for slaughter, isolating them from the rest of the individuals.

How to slaughter a goose

Before slaughter, you need to carry out some manipulations:

Birds are not recommended to be fed 8-10 hours before slaughter;
Geese intended for slaughter must be selected and kept separately;
The room for keeping at night should be illuminated so that the crop and digestive organs are freed from food debris;
Before slaughter, birds should drink enough water.

There are two main types of slaughter: external and internal. The outdoor method is very easy to implement and suitable for all types of birds. The second is mainly used for slaughtering chickens and turkeys, so we will consider only the first.

To carry out the slaughter, the bird must be hung by the legs, and the wings should be laid one after the other.

After that, the bird is taken by the head, the neck is stretched, and an incision is made with a sharp knife behind the lower jaw and earlobe. In this case, the skin and the front part of the carotid artery should be cut. The blade of the knife should be directed with a slope under the jaw.

After that, the bird should hang upside down for some time so that all the blood is drained from the carcass. If this is not done, pathogens may appear in the remains of the blood, which will impair storage. Depending on the size of the bird, the bleeding period lasts from one to two minutes.

Figure 1. Rules for slaughtering geese: 1 - slaughter device, 2 - dry plucking, 4 - removing feathers using boiling water, 4 - industrial plucking unit

When all the blood has flowed out, the carcass is plucked either in a dry way, or by pre-treating the bird with boiling water. The carcass must be kept in boiling water for at least five minutes. The temperature of the liquid should be approximately 53 degrees so that the process of protein denaturation on the surface does not begin.

It is easier to pluck a goose if, after scalding, the carcass is cooled for several hours. Figure 1 shows a photo of the slaughtering device, and also shows the technology for plucking feathers.

When plucking, first remove large feathers from the wings and tail, and then small ones on the belly, back, shoulders and legs. The rest of the fluff must be scorched. After plucking, the feathers are sorted by size. For example, small feathers from the neck and chest are used to fill pillows and mattresses.

How to pluck a goose at home

There are several ways to pluck geese. Immediately after slaughter, it is better to pluck the bird with a dry method, without scalding and using special nozzles. Feathers are pulled out in the direction of growth so as not to damage the skin. First, the largest feathers are plucked from the wings and tail, and then they move on to smaller ones on the breast, neck and legs.

You can also use the hot plucking method. To do this, the carcass is immersed in hot water for several minutes, and then the feathers are quickly pulled out. advantage this method is that the feathers are removed with little or no damage to the skin. But all manipulations must be carried out quickly, while the scalding effect is in effect. The disadvantage is that the feathers will be unsuitable for further use.

In addition, there are special machines with attachments that allow you to pluck a goose in just a few minutes.

Goose cutting: photo and video

Next, the carcass must be gutted. After cutting the carcass, the first step is to remove the gallbladder and intestines, which are immediately discarded. Liver, heart and gizzard are suitable for food. Other internal organs can be used as feed (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Gutting a goose carcass: 1 - separation of the legs along the tarsal joint, 2 - annular incision around the cloaca, 3 - longitudinal section of the wall abdominal cavity, 4 - removal of internal organs, 5 - carcass prepared for veterinary and sanitary examination, 6 - heart compartment, 7 - liver compartment, 8 - muscle stomach compartment, 9 - head compartment, 10 - goiter removal

After that, the eviscerated bird must be washed in cold water and let it cool for eight hours at room temperature. Then it is suitable for cooking or storing in the refrigerator. However, in order for the meat to become more juicy and tender, it is still better to stand it for a while before eating it.

Note: In geese, stiffness after slaughter occurs more quickly, and the maturation period is also shorter. For example, for young animals it is from two to four hours, and for an adult bird from six to eight.

If storage is short (no more than five days), carcasses can be placed in a conventional refrigerator. If not, the carcass is simply wrapped in a vinegar-soaked cloth and hung up. In this case, you need to ensure that the fabric is constantly wet.

The author of the video will tell you how to quickly pluck goose feathers and gut a bird.

For long-term storage, do the following (Figure 3):

Gradually (over 12-18 hours) cool the carcasses, and then freeze at a temperature of 12-18 degrees.
AT winter time carcasses can simply be taken out into the street and lowered into a container of water, and then frozen in the open air. The procedure is repeated several times, after which an ice crust forms on the surface of the bird.
After that, the carcasses are wrapped in parchment and stored in a freezer at a temperature of up to minus eight degrees. In this form, they can be stored for up to three months. Before cooking, the carcass must be gradually thawed.

In addition to freezing, meat can be salted. To do this, the meat is poured with a weak saline solution (150 grams of salt per kilogram of meat, and only 300 grams of salt must be dissolved in a liter of water). The solution must be poured with a syringe through the mouth, bandage the neck and hang the bird by the legs and pour the solution after twenty hours.

Figure 3. Methods for storing carcasses: a - a drawing of a home smokehouse, b - freezing, c - salting, d - smoking

Smoking is also a good storage method. The bird cut along the breast is rubbed with salt (1 kg of salt, 20 g of sugar and black pepper per 10 kg of meat). After two days, the carcasses must be applied with a load (2-3 kg per 10 kg of meat). The duration of the salting is 3-4 days for small, and six for large geese. Before the smoking process, carcasses must be washed in clean water to remove excess salt.

For long-term storage, geese need to be smoked with cold smoke for two to three days (smoke temperature is not more than 20 degrees). If long-term storage is not foreseen, the first hour of the carcass is accumulated with hot smoke (80 degrees) and for another three hours with smoke at 35-40 degrees.

To remove soot and soot after smoking, the carcass must be wiped with a clean cloth. For storage, you need to choose a clean and dry room with a temperature not exceeding five degrees.

Ingredients:

Whole goose

How to butcher a goose at home

Everyone may encounter a case when you need to butcher an ungutted bird on your own. Following our instructions, it will not be difficult to cut a domestic goose into portioned pieces.

We start cutting from the moment when our goose is hacked and cleaned of feathers. Pen cleaning can be done in two ways:

1. Dry plucking

The goose must be plucked immediately after slaughter, so that the carcass does not have time to freeze. Tie the paws and wings of the bird with a rope - it will be more convenient to pluck a wild or domestic goose correctly.

Start plucking from the breast to the end of the abdomen. Then you need to remove all the feathers from the subclavian cavity and pluck the back. First, pull out the feathers, and then proceed to the fluff, immediately preparing suitable containers for the removed fluff and feather. After the feather and down are completely removed, the goose should immediately be scorched with a gas burner or blowtorch.

2. Plucking with water

If you are going to pluck an already cooled goose carcass, then just hold it for a couple of minutes in hot water, pre-wrapped with gauze. Pinch in the same way as in the first method described above.

How to butcher a goose step by step instructions with a photo:

Step 1

Our goose is plucked, washed and dried. We will place it on an oilcloth or a large cutting board.

Step 2

Cut off the joints of the paws and the extreme part of the wings. Remove all remaining feather stumps by carefully examining the goose carcass.

Step 3

We will make a neat transverse incision in the lower abdomen of the carcass, trying in no case to touch the internal organs of the goose.

Step 4

We will get the giblets by hand so as not to violate their integrity. You should especially pay attention to the gallbladder, located near the liver (do not crush it, otherwise everything that the bile gets on will go rancid).

Step 5

Gently cleanse the liver from the gallbladder, the stomach - from the contents and the hard inner shell, the heart - from the films. We tear out the trachea by feeling it in the upper part of the cavity and pulling it down to the incision on the abdomen. Remove excess fat (it will come in handy for pates, so you can immediately melt it, or send it to the freezer to melt goose fat when a decent amount has accumulated).

Step 7

Place our towel-dried goose carcass and all edible giblets in a large saucepan, cover with a clean towel or loose lid. We will send the bird for a couple of days to a cold basement or to the zero chamber of the refrigerator. This is necessary for the proper maturation of poultry meat. Sometimes gutted birds are hung on special hooks in cellars or cold cells. In some cases, during the maturation process, goose carcasses are in special muslin bags. Choose a convenient way for you to store poultry carcasses! Enjoy cooking lots delicious meals with goose meat!

Before cutting the carcass into pieces, check it for any remaining feather stumps. They must be completely removed with tweezers. Scorch small fluff with a gas burner. After that, thoroughly wash and dry the carcass in the air for at least an hour. Then even a goose cooked in pieces will remain juicy.

Knowing how to quickly butcher a goose will save you time and effort.

Stages of cutting a raw goose:

cut off the tail, remove the insides and thoroughly rinse the carcass inside and out;
cut off the head, paws and ends of the wings;
cut off thick layers of fat under the skin, for this you need a thin sharp knife;
now turn the bird on its back and sharp big knife cut the sternum, separate the meat from the ribs;
cut off the wings and legs, it is most convenient to do this with special kitchen scissors;
divide the remaining carcass into 2-4 parts.

After cutting, the carcass must be dried. The bird cut in this way is compactly placed in a thick-bottomed pan. You can stew with vegetables or marinate in sour berries and fry in the oven.

How to carve a whole cooked goose

If you don't have large bird, then the best way- Bake it whole. The goose is washed, marinated in mustard, vinegar or sour berries according to the season. Be sure to dry it so that the crust turns out to be ruddy and crispy. To remove excess fat, you can stuff the abdomen with buckwheat, prunes, apples.

Such a dish is served on the table as a whole and cut already at the guests. In order not to get burned by the steam from the abdomen, pierce it thin knife about 10 minutes before cutting. You will need a sharp wide knife and a special long-handled fork.

Roast Goose Cut:

If the bird is stuffed, then first you need to take out the filling. Cut the twine or remove the skewers. Fold the filling in a separate container, it is served as an addition to the side dish.
Separate the legs and wings finished bird this can be done by hand, carefully cutting the skin and meat with a knife.
Now cut off the pieces of the breast along with the skin.

From one goose weighing 2-2.5 kg, approximately 10-12 servings of gourmet meat are obtained.

The goose has long been a real decoration of any holiday table. You can buy a bird in a store or on the market, but many prefer to grow it on their own farm. Slaughtering geese, like plucking and butchering, involves following certain rules. What are the features of the process, how to prepare a bird for it, you will learn about the methods of slaughtering and butchering the carcass from this material.

Before the start of slaughter, the goose should tie its paws and lay the wings on top of each other. Then he is hung up so that he is upside down. It directly depends on the competent choice of slaughter technique whether the carcass will have a presentation and whether it can be stored for a long time. You need to try to bleed the carcass as soon as possible.

If the blood lingers for a long time, the carcass will acquire a characteristic red color and will be poorly stored. At home, it is customary to use the well-known external slaughter method. The bird is turned on its side, on the back of the left jaw, located below, and the skin of the earlobes is cut with a knife.

Thus, it is necessary to cut the facial branch of the carotid artery. In order for the muscles that usually securely hold the feathers to be able to relax, the bird is given a special injection into the brain through the palatine fissure.

You need to kill a bird at home not only quickly, but also correctly. If you doubt that you can handle it yourself, invite a professional.

After slaughter, the bird should be left hanging in a head down position. So all the blood can come out of it.

The wings are spread, they must hang freely, otherwise bruises will appear on the surface. This can adversely affect the quality of the resulting fluff and feathers. The carcass should be in this position until all the blood flows out of it. Otherwise, you run the risk of getting a carcass with poor taste characteristics and reducing the shelf life of meat at times, since blood is an excellent breeding ground for harmful bacteria.

A carcass from which blood has not been completely removed is not recommended for use for cooking. Bleeding can last up to 20 minutes. After its completion, the carcass can begin to pluck.

Training

To quickly remove feces from the intestines, table or Glauber salt is added to drinking water. 3 hours before killing the bird, they stop giving water to it. During the fasting process, when you stop feeding the geese before slaughter, they should be placed in a dark room.

There is also a dry bedding or a box with a bottom made of mesh or a grate. In this way, unwanted pen contamination can be avoided. It is recommended to wash before.

It is impossible not to feed the bird before slaughter for more than 12 hours, as it will eat garbage or feathers. Therefore, it is better not to feed young individuals for about 4 hours, and adults - up to 6 hours. Before you slaughter a bird and cut its carcass, you should make sure that the intestines and esophagus are free from food. It is not advised to kill a bird without preparation - for some time you should not feed it. If this recommendation is neglected, then in the process of gutting the intestines can tear, and the feces will fall into the cavity of the carcass.

Techniques

The most common methods of slaughter poultry can be called internal and external. For the external method, you need a well-sharpened knife. To begin with, the goose needs to be laid head down in a cone. Before starting the slaughter process, it is recommended to stun the bird with an accurate sharp blow to the head. This is best done with a stick. They take the head with the left hand, pierce the throat in the area slightly below the earlobe.

It is desirable to stick the knife as deep as possible. With a clear movement, you should begin to cut the carotid artery and jugular vein. The blood must drain completely from the carcass. There is no need to rush, so that the meat does not lose its palatability. When the complete bleeding of the bird carcass occurs, you can start cutting it.

The internal technique involves the use of scissors. Before starting the process, the goose needs to tie its paws. Then he is hung upside down. The beak must be unclenched for the bird, placing scissors inside, and with one precise movement, the bridge and jugular veins are cut. Then they make a puncture in the sky. Scissors thus move towards the far part of the skull. Many choose internal way, since it is possible to kill a bird with it faster than with an external one. Before slaughter, it is recommended to study in detail anatomical features birds. Since people who are oriented in the correct phased slaughter draw knowledge from sources.

We cut the carcass

The carcass is preliminarily inspected to exclude the presence of feather residues and mechanical damage. When frying, small remnants of feathers can significantly spoil the taste of any dish. It is best to remove them using tweezers. Fine hairs left after the plucking procedure are recommended to be scorched.

You can do this over the stove or take a blowtorch. Remove any parts from the goose that you will not roast. Most often it is the head, ends of the wings, paws, tail. They need to be cut with a well-sharpened knife or special kitchen scissors. The offal is removed from the carcass, which is then thoroughly washed. challenging task is the removal of internal fat. It is located in the abdominal cavity of the bird. A small, sharp knife works best for this step. Starting to cut fat with it, you will not touch the meat and bones. In a similar way get rid of subcutaneous fat.

If you do not plan to bake the whole goose, you need to remove the valuable brisket from it. Lay the bird belly up, make a cut from the tail towards the neck. The fillet should be carefully trimmed, then moving with a knife near the ribs. Turn the carcass over to the other side and cut off the fillets near the back. The breast bone can be separated with scissors for butchering poultry. A large sharp knife will do. Legs and wings should be separated from the carcass.

To properly cut the carcass in half, it is cut along the ridge with a knife with a fairly wide blade. The knife must be well sharpened so as not to make unnecessary movements. The resulting parts of the goose are cut in turn into three to four pieces. So you can prepare the carcass for subsequent cooking, frying or stewing.

In hot summer period a beaten bird is stored at room temperature for about a day and a half. In winter, it is best to freeze it. Previously, all carcasses must be cooled for about a day in the refrigerator. Then they are taken out into the cold, immersed in water, where the ice is, and frozen. This should be done up to 5 times so that a crust appears on the carcass. They wrap the bird in a bag or paper, put it in a box in which straw or hay is already placed. If provide temperature regime at level -2, it can be stored for up to 3 months. Thawing is then carried out gradually so that the meat does not lose its taste.

Video “Rules for butchering a goose carcass”

After watching the video, you will learn how to properly and quickly butcher geese.