Anybody pressure can chicken pieces? My recipe does not mention adding liquid to the jar it just says to place the pieces in jar. Shouldn't a broth be added to cover? My book says 10# for 90 minutes on a quart- does this match? Also if you have a good pork and bean recipe for the canner- I made a few jars last year but they tasted terrible! They would be good to have a few jars hanging around. Thanks!

-- Terri (Terri@tallships.ca), November 06, 2000

Answers

Terri, I hot pack our chicken, then add the hot broth they were in and give it a 1 inch headspace, and process for 90 mins.

-- Phyllis (almostafarm@yahoo.com), November 06, 2000.

Terri: Someone on this forum on an older thread (sorry, I don't remember who or which one) said they just put the chicken pieces in, and pressure canned them without broth, then used the meat to make fried chicken. I've done it both ways now, and either way is acceptable. It works just fine without the broth if you don't want it. Here I have to use 15# pressure as we are at 6500 feet altitude, but still for 90 minutes for quarts. Jan

-- Jan in Colorado (Janice12@aol.com), November 06, 2000.

I haven't done chicken this way,but have done venison.it's delicious,makes it tender and moist,perfect for BBQ.OR Stew. Would this method soften the chicken as well?

-- sharon wt (wildflower@ekyol.com), November 06, 2000.

Funny you should ask or that I should see it today. I'm canning some chickens we butchered Saturday. One was an older rooster who definitely will need benefit of a pressure cooker or canning.

If you are raw packing the chicken, you do not add broth as it makes its own. You can add salt at the rate of 1/2 t. per pint or 1 t. per quart. I raw pack boned breast meat and last year, the legs and thighs. The rest of the parts, I slow simmered with onion, celery leaves, carrot, salt and pepper, and then cooled it enough to handle, drained the broth, and skimmed the fat. I removed the meat from the bones, chunked it and filled pint jars loosely with the meat. Then I covered the meat with reheated broth and proceeded. I also canned any remaining broth as a soup base. Since I had cooked the boney parts with salt and pepper, I didn't add any before canning it. It works just fine. You might also want to look up the soup recipe in Gail Damerow's book on raising chickens. You don't make a pot of soup then try to evenly distribute it to the quart jars. You put so much of each ingredient into the jar, cover with hot broth and proceed with the usual canning.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), November 07, 2000.

I don't want to offend anybody that answered this question, but as a general rule always check a recent 'official' resource before canning a new food. I know people who waterbath can everything and say "that's the way Mom did it, and nobody's died yet." Sooner or later somebody might. Asking for clearification for a recipe probably isn't that risky, but I had to get my two-cents in.

The best web site with the official USDA canning guidelines is:

http://www.ext.usu.edu/publica/foodpubs.htm

==>paul

-- paul (p@ledgewood-consulting.com), November 07, 2000.