It was a month ago when my family watched the Food, Inc. documentary. Shocking will not be the accurate word for it. I was left to dwell on it for days. The revelation of it all I did not come close to ingesting it all. When I got invited to Brasserie Cicou to meet with French businessman Gerard Pappillon and his Filipina wife, Tina Morados to tell us about Pamora Farm’s “real” free-range chicken, I could not have been more ready.
If free-range chicken sounds a bit of a jargorn, it is really just free-roaming chicken. Of course, when you buy it it’s not anymore. But essentially, it was bred to roam around freely at the farm. Nothing of the above clip from Food, Inc., where chicken are considered full grown at 45 days!
Pamora Farm’s free–roaming range chicken. Just the way chicken are supposed to be — to see the light of day, to learn how to walk. The farms shown in Food, Inc. showed us barns with tens of thousands of chickens that never learned how to walk! Although there are brands that claim to be free-range, in its very sense of the word, they really are not.
The principle of free-range method is to allow the animals to live at their instinctual behaviour in a reasonably natural way instead of being contained in a cage like commercial broiler production where the chickens are forced to grow abnormally fast in just about 4 to 5 weeks (28-35 days).
Free-range chickens roam in a barnyard or field (range) to forage with a minimum of eight (8) hours daylight. Aside from the daily intake of milled yellow corn, they eat whatever organic food they could find on the ground like grass, insects, and the like.
Pamora Free-range chickens are grown at a minimum of 70 days. Having the chickens ranging for longer period gives the optimum natural chicken taste, firmer meat quality, and much healthier poultry meat with less fat content.
Gerard Pappillon at the Pamora Farm
Being foodies get us to swanky places like Brasserie Cicou. I love the feel of the restaurant! I love it better that I learned right there that I don’t have to spend so much to experience authentic french cuisine.
Our meal started off with this generous spread of everything Pate! In this order: Chicken Breast & Gizzard Pate, Chicken Liver Pate, Chicken Gizzard Pate, Chicken Breast & Liver Pate, Chicken Breast Pate and Chicken Liver & Gizzard Pate. Each of them has this distinct, interesting and I want some more taste to it! I knew it wasn’t just me because my son loved each and every variant I got home with. 🙂
This Chicken Liver variant won me over at first bite! I asked as soon as I had a taste of it where we can purchase. When Gerard said, Santis, I knew I had more reason to go visit Santi’s more often. And they are only sold for P110! If you go to the Pamora Farm in Abra, then you’ll get it for only P80. It’s really the glass container that’s really costly in Pamora Farm’s Pate, Gerard Papillon said.
Brasserie Cicou Green Salad with Pickles and Mustard
I wish we can have fresh greens everyday! I devoured on this very tasty green salad with just pickles and mustard, to taste, as soon as it landed on my plate.
Roasted Coquelet Chicken with rosemary, garlic and Mashed Potato
Truth be told, roasted chicken never tasted as flavorful as this. To think that there’s nothing more to this than just rosemary and garlic. I figured why:
Free-range chickens are grown longer, thus the meat is firmer, cooking time takes longer for free-range chickens, although you will not need any flavoring additives like broth cubes or chicken stocks. Salt and pepper will be enough, and sometimes even those are not needed.
Trio of Creme Brulee (Green Tea, Chocolate, Vanilla)
For me, it was best to eat them three in that particular order. I love that they used dark chocolate (tastes a lot like our native cocoa). For that reason, Vanilla is still the sweetest of the three and should be eaten last, in my taste buds’ opinion. 🙂
Chef Summer of Brasserie Cicou with Tina and Gerard Papillon of Pamora Farm
Expect us to come visit soonest, Chef Cyrille! Thank you Gerard and Tina Papillon for bringing this healthy alternative chicken to our country. When most businessmen of our race would shoot for what’s more convenient and faster ROI, you ushered in the complicated technology of this kind of poultry production towards a healthier Filipinos at rates so affordable.
Pamora chickens, eggs & pâté products are available at Santis Delicatessen, Terry Selections, Rustan’s Supermarket, Shopwise, Metro Market! Market!, RFI Farm Outlet (Holy Spirit, QC), Joji Berry (Crossroad 77 Mother Ignacia, QC), NCCC – Davao, Champetre restaurant (BGC), Brasserie Ciçou (Greenhills), Resorts World Manila, Ilustrado Restaurant (Intramuros), El Nido Resorts, Amanpulo, Saturday Market, Ayala Alabang Village and Golden Acres Farm, Inc. (distributor).
Pamora Farm
www.pamorafarm.com
(02) 759-2678 / (02) 506-1082
(0917) 537-5639 / (0917) 591-7391
