Some weeks ago I wrote about my attempts to recreate the memory of my grandmother’s braised chicken. I came pretty close by cooking a stewing hen sous-vide at 64C/147F for 3 days, but I was not completely satisfied with the result yet. In the meantime I have done two new experiments with chicken from the same source, once at 62C/144F and once at 60C/140F. Just a short post today to give you an update of the results.

Even after cooking sous-vide for over 16 months now, the difference of only 2C/4F degrees still amazes me. I’ve decided that 62C/144F for 3 days is the optimal for cooking stewing hen sous-vide, since it was as tender and flaky as the stewing hen cooked at 64C/147F for 3 days, but more juicy. The stewing hen cooked at 60C/140F for 3 days was very tough.

Please note that these results only apply for stewing hen, as ‘normal’ chicken legs will be tender at 60C/140F (even though 62C/144F is better) and only need a few hours at 64C/147F to be tender.

The next (and probably final) installment for this quest will be posted as soon as I’ve found a ‘running around the yard organic’ stewing hen to really recreate the memory of my grandmother’s chicken…