Cleaning the Gizzards

After butchering the chickens, we still have some work to do.  We wash all the livers and pack them into quart sized Ziploc bags.  They make a great supper, pan-fried in butter in a cast iron skillet.  We cut the chicken hearts in half and wash out any coagulated blood.  The heart is a muscle and makes for good eating.

Next comes the gizzards.  Gizzards require some work.  First, I like to pull off the fatty tissue that surrounds the gizzard and wash them up good.

Then, with a sharpened knife, we cut them in half.  This exposes a yellow, vinyl-like lining.  This is peeled off and thrown in the compost bucket.  There are a couple of items of interest in this chicken's gizzard - there are two small rocks in the gizzard.  Why would a chicken eat rocks?  Well, since chickens don't have teeth, they need something to grind their food down so it can be digested.  Therefore, they eat rocks, which become like teeth to them.  I remember as a teenager, I killed a wild goose.  When cleaning it, I found a penny in his gizzard.  I guess they aren't particular and will find and eat anything that will help them digest their food.

The other item of interest is the amount of grass in their gizzards.  Look in the bucket below.  The white stuff is the fat that surrounds the gizzard that we pulled off.  The yellow stuff is the gizzard lining that we pulled off.  The green stuff is grass - lots of grass.  I think that is very positive as grass gives the chicken extra nutrition that they aren't getting in the feed.  If you look closely, you can see some grainy stuff on the bottom of the bucket.  That is sand.  The birds scratch around and find sand to eat to help grind their food.

Finally, we start washing the processed gizzards and we will freeze in quart-sized bags.  Tricia makes gizzards and rice.  You would thing that they are rubbery, but if you cook them right, they are tender.

Gizzards are one of those things I didn't grow up eating as a kid, but as an adult I gave them a chance and it turns out that I like them.  Tricia prepares them with rice as a traditional Mexican dish.  I'd like her to try battering and then frying them.