Tender & Delicious Capon Chicken

A capon is a rooster that has been castrated before reaching sexual maturity. The reason a rooster is made into a capon has mostly to do with the quality of the meat. But also, a capon is less aggressive than a rooster and is easier to handle. Capon meat is tender and flavorful, compared with rooster meat, which can be quite gamy. Capon meat is also relatively fatty, and has a high proportion of white meat. The difference between capon meat and rooster meat is due to the absence of sexual hormones. The process of making a rooster into a capon is called caponization. A capon is usually castrated at around 8 weeks of age or earlier. Capons are generally slaughtered at around 10 months of age or younger (as compared with around 12 weeks for a regular roasting chicken). From About Food by Danilo Alfaro I brined and roasted one of Jim Schiltz’s 7.5 pound capons according to a simple recipe by Gabrielle Hamilton of New York City’s Prune restaurant, and the first taste was a revelation. The f