Instant Pot 'Spent Hen'
(aka Stewing Hen for Soup & Tacos)
Tacos y Sopa de Pollo Gastado
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Sometimes it's hard to come up with a title - not because you can't think of one, but because you can't stop thinking of alternatives. This is one of those times. I've already overdone it with that bilingual trio of titles above, but even still I can't quite encapsulate everything this recipe (and this post) is all about. So I hope you'll read on.
I recently learned about the interesting linguistic concept of fossil words. Essentially, these are words have become functionally extinct, but continue to soldier on in common usage solely because they're tied to an expression or idiom that remains part of our language. Take the expression 'to and fro' - I don't know about you, but I've never had any cause to use the word 'fro' in my daily life. I'm not even sure how I'd go about using it... I mean, I assume it basically means 'over there' in a generic sense, but the word has clearly exited the common parlance. Funny enough, the word 'thither' (as in hither and thither, which is itself an increasingly uncommon idiom), yon, and yonder all basically means the same thing. I guess the English language has a thing for ditching words meant for generically refering to other places.
I've made no secrets about my love for linguistics and I find that the subject frequently (and fascinatingly) tends to intersect with food. In this case, I can't help but wonder if certain food words are only hanging on by the barest of threads thanks to the cultural significance of certain dishes. Case in point: coq au vin. Now I am admittedly blurring the lines by bringing French to the table, but a) English is loaded with French words anyway, b) English food language is especially loaded with French terms, and c) I'm Canadian so I've got a built in excuse. Ça suffit. In any case, coq au vin literally means cock (rooster) with wine. As in rooster, not hen. Even if you've never had coq au vin, you're probably well aware of the fact that it's supposed to be made with chicken, but have you ever thought about that whole 'rooster' part of the equation? I mean, who eats rooster, right? Well that's just the thing - the answer to that question was once 'anybody who needs to get rid of a rooster.' Meat has become a rather specific and narrowly defined commodity in much of the world. When it comes to chicken, consumer demand is for mild-tasting, tender meat, which is the kind of meat that you get from young hens. So that's what the chicken industry produces. But this is, by necessity, a biologically contrived process. Chickens, like dogs or pigeons, are only moderately differentiated from their wild ancestor (in this case, the Red Junglefowl, Gallus gallus). There are some pretty strange and fancy varieties to be found, but on the whole their domestication is the result of a fairly short and relatively recent bit of artificial selection. Domestic chickens naturally live a life very similar to their wild counterparts (in fact, domestic chickens can and do easily become 'wild' when released into appropriate environments). In the typical polygynous harem-like setting, the aggressive and boldly coloured males vie for the attention of multiple females, who in turn raise large broods of relatively independent chicks. The roosters ensure their odds of siring loads of fluffy little offspring by remaining ever-ready to do battle against any interlopers (including the odd unfortunate human). This system has been emulated with varying degrees of modification by farmers over millennia, but the basic idea has been maintained: keep lots of hens and only one (or a few) roosters. The 20th century saw increasing industrialization and a decreased role for roosters in the system. Of course they're still necessary when it comes to producing new chickens (can't work around that bit of biology yet...), but they're all but out of the picture when it comes to the production of eggs for eating. In fact, the 50:50 sex ratio of male and female chickens is a something of a biological burden; when you're producing hens for laying,1 you've got to raise eggs, figure out which chicks are female and which ones are male, then get rid of the extras (i.e., the males). The process is unceremoniously blunt and designed to be as quick as possible, but suffice it to say that male chicks live a short life with a rather sudden end. This has, understandably, been one of the more controversial and unpleasant aspects of the industry for a long time, but advances in the world of chicken production are actually starting to address one of the long-standing issues related to males, that of unwanted male chicks. New technology being developed could allow processors to identify the gender of an egg before it's hatched or even mature, allowing males to be eliminated from the system as eggs, rather than chicks. It's good for the industry's image (those fluffy baby chicks fall into that category of cuteness that evokes some pretty strong responses from consumers), and it's good for the bottom line. No need to expend effort or funds raising half of your eggs only to destroy the chicks. That being said, it's a long way from implementation at the moment, and would need to be streamlined and made cost-effective before seeing application.
1. An earlier version of this article mentioned birds raised for meat as well, but readers kindly pointed out that the system is a bit different in Canada and the USA, where both male and female chickens are raised for meat production.
Regardless of any advances in chicken rearing, the prototypical rooster isn't going anywhere in our minds (or our language). They are, after all, firmly embedded in our culture. But culinarily? That's an entirely different story.
In smaller, more traditional farming systems roosters are an absolute necessity. Waste is to be abhorred in the farming world, so when a rooster had aged past his prime, the solution was simple: into the pot. The same holds for old laying hens who no longer produce eggs (or enough eggs). Waste not want not, and off to the dinner table with you. But when it comes down to the actual cooking, these old chickens are rather far removed from their younger, milder counterparts. They are far more richly-flavoured, generally leaner, and considerably a bit tougher. Coq au vin does not exist simply because it's nice to cook chicken with wine - it exists because rooster, with it's bolder flavour and tougher meat, braises very well. There has historically been an entire range of chickens available for eating, with varying flavours and characteristics. Roosters, spent laying hens, capons (castrated and fattened roosters), poulardes, pullets - as far as cooks have been concerned, the myriad ages and stages of the common fowl all have a place on the plate.
But the situation has changed drastically in North America - and perhaps it will change again. The North American diet of the 20th century pushed the idea of attainable luxury, favouring the choicest, tenderest, and (in the case of chickens), mildest of meats. The idea of stewing a stringy old bird all day fell out of favour, along with other waste-not-want-not foods like offal. But the change in consumer demand did not, of course, alter the realities of biology. Spent hens (the eponymous pollo gastado of this recipe) are still a part of our food supply. Given the shift in popularity, you'd be forgiven for thinking that sourcing one out would be difficult, but not everyone has forgotten about these flavourful and inexpensive birds. The strong flavour of older hens is highly prized by Chinese cooks, and the significant Chinese diaspora in my little corner of Canada means that demand remains relatively strong. I picked up the chicken for this recipe from the freezer section of a large local grocery store. It cost about 6 bucks (head and all), and it was raised about 50 km from me by a farm that specializes in providing these birds for the Chinese-Canadian market. Cheap, local, sustainable, and delicious.
As North America, and indeed the world becomes increasingly multicultural, we're seeing the re-diversification of our grocery store shelves. Immigrant populations drive demand for the fruits, vegetables, spices and meats that are essential to the cuisines of their homelands. This increases availability, in some cases spilling over into other markets and enticing other communities. Before you know it, people are discovering (or rediscovering) foods that had been unknown to them only a generation earlier. And while we can be guilty of jumping on the food-trend-du-jour, this process can and does lead to real change; the esteemed Jane Grigson wrote about bell peppers (capsicums) in her Vegetable Book, noting that they were essentially unknown in the UK before the 1980s, despite being rather popular in the Mediterranean. Populations shifted, exposure grew, and now it's nearly impossible to imagine even the most basic of produce sections without a stoplight-hued selection of peppers.
You don't need to spend long on Diversivore for it to become abundantly clear that I've got a pretty big interest in some of the stranger and rarer food items out there, but even if your tastes run toward the commoner and more acceptable, everyone's a winner when we diversify our food supply. Diversity means greater ecosystem function, increased opportunities for farmers, decreased food waste, decreased vulnerability to climate change, and so much more. It also gives us access to new, variable, and interesting flavours - a factor that might mean more to consumers than anything else.
We're in a unique position in the 21st century. Our access to old-fashioned biodiversity, global tastes (and economies), and modern science, mean that we have the potential to completely revitalize our approach to food. I for one hope that we all see, cook, and eat more food like this.
Recipe Notes
This simple, adaptable recipe is designed for the Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker, but it can easily be adapted for a slow cooker or stove top. See the notes below for more on this.
Chicken
If you skipped ahead to this point and somehow missed the earlier clues, this recipe is all about the under-appreciated and inexpensive spent laying hens (also called stewing hens). These birds have leaner bodies and tough meat, but a ton of flavour. That combination means that they're perfect for pressure-cooking. You can often find them at Chinese grocery stores, and you may find them in the freezer section of well-stocked conventional grocery stores. You can also try getting in touch with local chicken and egg farmers to see if they have a source or can supply chicken of their own. You could also substitute rooster, if you happen to have access to that.
If you can't find spent hen, you can use a regular chicken too, though I would recommend two quick changes to the recipe. First, if you have any extra chicken bones, add them along with the chicken for a boost in flavour. If you don't have bones, you could replace 1-2 cups of water with an equivalent amount of chicken or vegetable stock. Second, reduce the cook time to 30 minutes instead of 40 (press "Soup" on the Instant Pot once, or set it manually). You should still get a great soup, though some of the cost savings that go along with using a spent hen are certainly lost. You'll also end up with more shredded chicken, which is fine of course.
Epazote
Pretty much everything used to make the chicken is easily found with the exception of epazote. This herb is very common and popular in Mexican cooking, but it can be quite tricky to find in the USA and Canada. You can leave it out of the recipe and still end up with a great meal, so don't worry too much. If you can track it down though, it adds a fascinating and delicious element to the soup.
Epazote is an herb related to the ubiquitous weed known as lamb's quarters. While it doesn't taste much like lamb's quarters, it does share a propensity for growing easily in a variety of climates. If you're really eager to explore epazote, see if you can find seeds to grow yourself. Failing that, I've found the best luck by sourcing it from herb growers at farmer's markets. Buy a generous bundle and dry the excess for future use.
Note: Accurate nutritional info is difficult to work out here, as the recipe effectively makes two meals with variable add-ons. To simplify it, I've given information for the soup and chicken ONLY. Keep that in mind for tacos, added toppings, etc.
Nutritional Summary
Ingredient Pages
No ingredient pages have been written yet for any of the ingredients in this recipe. Like to see one? Let me know in the comments below or by email.
Pantry Pages
No pantry pages have been written yet for any of the ingredients in this recipe. Like to see one? Let me know in the comments below or by email.
Tacos y Sopa de Pollo Gastado
Ingredients
Basic Chicken & Soup
- 1 spent hen or rooster about 1.2 kg (see note)
- 3 stalks celery plus any leaves you might have
- 4-5 stalks parsley
- 3 roma tomatoes halved
- 3 medium carrots (~250 g) diced
- 1 medium onion quartered
- 3 cloves garlic lightly smashed and peeled
- 1/2 tsp marjoram
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- 1/2 tsp epazote (optional - see note)
- 1/4 tsp oregano preferably Mexican
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 tbsp salt plus more to taste, if necessary
- 1.5 L water (~6 cups)
Taco Serving (Optional)
- corn tortillas
- cilantro
- red onion
- avocado
- tomatoes
- pepitas (hulled pumpkin seeds)
- cotija cheese or other firm, relatively mild cheese
- lime
Soup Serving (Optional)
- cooked white rice
- avocado
- cilantro
- lime
Instructions
Chicken (Basic Recipe)
- Inspect the spent/stewing hen. Odd are good that it came with the feet and head still attached. Leave these on (unless you're particularly squeamish about this). The body cavity is usually clean, but check to make sure that there isn't a package with any organ meat inside (like you'd find with turkey). If there is, you can actually include (or exclude) any parts that you might like in the soup, but remove any packaging.
- Combine the chicken and all of the other basic ingredients in the Instant Pot (or other electric pressure cooker). You can tie the parsley in a little bundle to make it easier to remove, but this is optional.
- Seal the lid and cook by pushing the Instant Pot soup button twice for a longer cook time, or by using a 40 minute manual setting (see note). Once the time has elapsed, allow the pressure cooker to release naturally (or, if you're pressed for time, let it stand for 10 minutes and then release manually).
- Carefully remove the chicken from the pot and set it aside. Strain the rest of the soup to yield a clear broth. You can pick out the carrots or onions if you like, but I tend to discard them as they've given up most of their flavour to the soup at this point. Salt to taste, and season with pepper if you like.
- Pick the meat off of the chicken and keep it for tacos, serving with the soup, or any other meal you might like.
Tacos
- Toast corn tortillas in a frying pan or comal. Keep toasted tortillas in a small basket or on a plate and cover with a small hand towel.
- Fill tacos with shredded chicken, avocado, onion, tomatoes, cilantro, pepitas, cotija (or any other cheese you like, or skip the cheese) and/or any other toppings you think would be good. Serve with a fresh squeeze of lime.
Soup
- The clear broth can be eaten as-is (a popular option when you're fighting a cold). To dress it up a bit and make for a more substantial meal, fill individual serving bowls with about 1/3 cup cooked white rice (per person), pour the soup over this, and top with diced avocado and cilantro. Serve hot, with fresh lime wedges so that diners can add juice to taste.
Notes
Nutrition
More Mexican Instant Pot Recipes
Instant Pot Brisket & Pasilla-Morita Adobo
Instant Pot Carnitas con Queso
Pressure Cooker Puerco Pibil
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Comments
What a wonderful recipe and a great post! I feel so much more “cultured” now. 🙂 Thank you for this and I look forward to giving this delicious recipe a try!
Thank you Vanessa! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
As always, I love the passion and education you put into your posts, Sean. You really go the extra mile and I always come away with a new appreciation for the ingredients you feature. The recipe looks delish, too — I haven’t yet ventured into Instant Pot land, but this post is definately giving me an extra nudge. Fantastic work, as always! Hope 2018 is off to a great start for you.
Thank you Justine! Sometimes I think I’m going to go a little crazy researching and writing these but… well, they just don’t seem finished to me until everything is there! Even after we bought the Instant Pot I didn’t do much with it for a while. My wife finally convinced me I wasn’t going to blow myself up, and as soon as I realized how easy it truly was I was hooked. I’ve done all kinds of recipes now, and I love being able to make basics like stock or beans in such a short amount of time.
Cheers, and here’s to 2018!
As a young bride, I knew very little about cooking chicken. I had grown up on a beef farm and took steaks and roasts for granted. So when my in-laws gave us a “spent hen” (I’ve only just now learned that that’s what they’re called.), I decided to serve chicken to company. I followed a recipe intended for a regular, young, grocery-store chicken. Imagine my husband’s embarrassment as our guest politely chewed through that “chicken!” An Instant Pot would have helped a whole lot!
Fortunately, there was only one guest, and he was my husband’s brother. I’ve had several opportunities to redeem myself over the years since then!
I feel your pain Cathy! I once roasted a spent hen, thinking that the low/slow cook time would be enough to make it tender. That was not my finest culinary moment. I’m quite certain that you’ve redeemed yourself time and time again at this point!
What a delicious recipe! I didn’t jump on the Instant Pot train, but I do have a 6 in one Breville unit that has all sort of similar features (like pressure cook) so I think I should be able to make this one 🙂 This is something that I would dive right into on a cold day! Have a great weekend 🙂
Thank you Dawn! I’m sure you could do very much the same thing with the Breville! As a general rule, these new-generation electric pressure cookers are pretty amazing contraptions (jeez I sound old when I talk like that). I hope you’ll give it a shot! Cheers!
Fascinating, may work well with game birds like pheasant. I’ll have to investigate older chickens in Yorkshire.
Thanks Lizzie! I’m sure you’re right! I’ve actually been thinking about working with pheasant lately, though I’ll probably do something roasted. It’d be interesting to see how a richer, gamier fowl would work in a recipe like this. Good luck in your search!
This is the most educational/amusing/thought-provoking/disturbing thing I have read in quite a while Sean! I was vegetarian for a long time for all kinds of reasons, and considered myself pretty informed, but I did not know about this business of destroying male chicks! Such a great perspective you have, and so interesting to see how you find ways to eat meat ethically. Also this recipe sounds delicious. Will keep an eye out for a stewing hen next time I’m in Chinatown!!
Thank you Ann! Meat can be… well, complex, to say the least. I’m not terribly sentimental about the system, but I do believe in transparency, education, and maximizing animal well-being, and chicken industries around the world can be a bit all over the map with respect to those. But ultimately, consumers play such a huge role, and eating chicken like this once in a while is, if nothing else, a good reminder of the realities of biology, agriculture, and the market! I wish you the best of luck experimenting with this in the future.
This was a great read, Sean! It’s always great when you can find approachable recipes requiring lesser known or less desired types of meat. This recipe look delicious and I love that it does double duty as both a soup and taco filling.
Thank you Natalie! I’m always excited to work with the less desirable, underappreciated cuts of meat – and I’m doubly excited when others can get on board with it too! Cheers.
Very excited to try this. My first stew hen attempt in the insta pot failed miserably. PS ‘fro’ is the equivalent of ‘from’ eg ‘to and from’ not quite over there, and thither is more like plain ‘there’ eg hither and thither = here and there.
Hi Sean. Love the idea of using mature chickens (this is gov’t’s new name for stewing hens/spent fowl) in recipes. But I need to clear up a bit of a misconception. Farmers who raise chickens for meat in Canada use both males and females. The chicken breasts you buy at your local grocer could be from a male or a female chicken. The chicks may be separated by gender after hatching, not because the males are unwanted, but because some farmers prefer to have all the females in one barn and all the males in a separate barn. The males grow a bit more quickly so they reach their market weight sooner than the females.
Another part of meat chicken farming is raising broiler breeder hens to provide hatching eggs. These are the fertilized eggs that hatch into the chicks that are then raised for meat. Roosters are absolutely essential on hatching egg farms – there are no fertilized eggs without them.
Mature chickens can be old laying hens from table egg farming or they can be old broiler breeder hens. Laying hens, becauses they’re a different breed, look quite a bit different than old broiler breeder hens. The layers have less meat on them, wheras the broiler breeder hens will look more like a typical big roasting chicken. Either way, as you noted, these old birds are best for soups and stews.
Hi Karen! Thanks for the info! I’ll try to update the post to reflect the information related to the Canadian system soon. Honestly sometimes it can be hard to wade through this kind of information because SO much of it pertains to the American system where things can be so different. I know that the level of vertical integration and control in the chicken farming system in the states is a lot more tightly controlled by big agribusiness, with many farmers not breeding their own chicks. It’s good to know that the system is a bit more balanced and in the hands of farmers here in Canada.
It’s interesting to hear about farmers raising males as well as females – I didn’t know about that aspect of the meat industry! Of course it would stand to reason that at least a few roosters are necessary for fertilized egg production, though I’ve often wondered just how many roosters you need given X number of hens. My experience with the matter is largely ‘old fashioned’ – namely the farm I buy a lot of my produce at and their motley crew of free-roaming chickens. They’ve got plenty of roosters!
I’d be curious to explore both old laying hens and old broiler hens from a culinary standpoint. For that matter, I’d be curious to explore cooking different breeds of chicken to see what impact they have on my food too. I’m always intrigued by biodiversity and genetic variation in our food, and there are so many fascinating chicken breeds out there in the world. In any case, I’ll be eager to make this recipe and recipes like it again – so I hope that I’ll get a chance to experiment more in the future! Cheers.
I came across this while looking for a recipe to use for some stringy dual-purpose cockerels I have in my freezer.
The birds raised for meat here in the US are both male and female. The piece of the puzzle you’re missing is the breeds for each commercial purpose.
Chicks raised commercially for meat these days are usually some sort of Cornish Cross. They’re bred to grow and put on muscle mass extremely fast. That’s why they’re so tender and mild in flavor; they’re still very, very young, generally no more than 8 weeks or so old. Males are fine here. You can’t really raise these chicks for eggs because they start running into health issues from their rapid growth before they reach maturity.
Where raising male chicks commercially makes no sense is with egg production. An example of this is Leghorns. They’re lanky, thin, devoted to laying as many eggs as possible, as large as possible, as young as possible. They put their energy into egg laying rather than muscle. The males will never fill out like a Cornish Cross and will be noticably tougher than commercial meat before they’re at all big enough to make it to the table. These are the males that are culled right away.
There are also “dual purpose” breeds that get a bit bigger than egg production breeds but also don’t lay as well. By the time they’re big enough to eat they’re not particularly tender. That’s what I’ve got in my freezer. Something like 18-20 weeks old, long legged, but nowhere near the breast meat of what you get in the store. Even year old roosters don’t fill out the same way as those in the store.
Thank you for the information Kelly! I’m glad to have it. I’m glad to know that birds raised for meat are not sex-selected. I’ll update the article to better reflect this, and to make clear the differences between meat and egg production. I’m glad to know that people with tougher/older birds are finding this recipe, and I hope that it helps to give people options beyond the most commonly available chickens produced for meat. Cheers!
The Instant Pot is a wondrous beast. I was so sick this week Shaun actually made me some chicken stock as I directed him from the couch. Never come across a rooster in the wild aka grocery store but you just never know right?
I couldn’t agree more Bernice! I was’t initially that into ours when we got it (unfounded fears of blowing myself up), but as soon as I tried it out I was hooked. As for rooster ‘in the wild’ – I don’t know that I’ve seen mature rooster for sale commercially, but I can almost guarantee that where you are you’d be able to find mature hens in some of the better Asian grocery stores. Hope you’re feeling better – and thanks for being COMMENT NUMBER TWO-THOUSAND on Diversivore! Yayyyyy!!!
Thank you, I butchered 6 old hens (stewing hens) today and I had lots of trouble finding a recipe, lots of them say they are for stewing hens but they aren’t. You are a life saver!
You’re very welcome Judy! I’m so glad you found this recipe, and I’m glad it served you well. Cheers!
I just tried this with a 5 pound (2.5 kg) stewing chicken. Couldn’t find a 1.2 kg. I left the water the same but added extra spices, etc. Pushed soup button twice and it cooked for over 4 hrs. It was still chewy, not tender. Any suggestions? Done in large IP. so there was plenty of room at top.
Hi Karen! Was the meat falling apart? I don’t think a stewing chicken is ever going to get to the point that I’d call it tender – instead, it gets to a point where it’s more fall-apart, like shredded pork or beef. Also, the soup button on an Instant Pot maintains a fairly low temperature (something that I will add a comment about – thank you for calling my attention to it). It may be that the higher pressure and temperature you’d get from manual cooking would help you out more with a large chicken like this. Hope that helps!