Gavin, you've come across the same problem we had... it turned out birds need to hang (actually, resting in a rack in the fridge is just as good) for 24 hours or so before jointing it. That wasn't obvious despite lots of googling beforehand, though it seems obvious to those in the know. Whoops.
Okaaayyyy, this is not going to sound very scientific and someone may well correct me or provide you with a 'proper' explanation, but this is how I understand it:
- when a body is killed, it will go through rigor mortis
- if you kill a bird and cook it right away, it's in full blown rigor mortis when on your plate. Shoe leather stage.
- if you leave the body to rest for a day or so, rigor mortis will have passed and it'll be a nice, juice bird on your plate. Yummy stage.
Now this is the bit where I may be talking nonsense or someone will have a better explanation, but here goes:
- we do pluck / skin the birds and gut them, but we don't joint them because (drumroll for the unscientific bit) it seems that to go through rigor mortis successfully, all these muscles sort of work together. We joint the day after, before freezing / cooking.
Since the hanging / resting for a day with the jointing afterwards, we never had shoe leather chicken again.
Now if someone says that they can be jointed before resting, that'll make my hubby happy who then needs to clean the chopping board only once
But I can't imagine freezing immediately (before rigor mortis has set in) would be a good thing as how would a muscle go through rigor mortis and back to tender again when frozen?
Anyway, with your next bird, kill it the day before the meal, pluck / skin and gut it. Hold off with the jointing unless oodles of people here now contradict me on that. Then enjoy - and be very pleased the first bird wasn't your long awaited, much cherished Christmas turkey
Good luck