It Tastes Like Chicken

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So, on my first day of classes I ended up going to the market with my friend and classmate, Paula, before going over to her apartment to do our homework and study. Well, she wanted to make chicken curry for dinner and needed to buy some chicken. The market we went to was a huge semi-outdoor one with at least 50 different vendors selling everything from carrots to cow tongue to cashew nuts.

The options for chicken for Paula’s dish were many. She had frozen chicken pieces, fresh butchered chicken (half chicken or whole chicken) or fresh live chicken (technically hen…I think). After perusing the options, she decided to go with a live chicken! This was a new experience for me, as I had always bought my meats already butchered and wrapped in saran wrap at a grocery store, so I was intrigued. On our way to the live poultry booth, we passed the fish corner where just as we walked by a woman took what looked to be an at least 15-pound fish by its tail and slammed it down on the concrete ground…presumably to kill it or at least knock it out (which didn’t quite work completely) before she proceeded to scale it with a machete and slice it into 2-inch steaks while it was still squirming.

So, then we found ourselves before an assortment of hens squawking and pecking around several cages (one of which also had a large rabbit in it…the poor guy actually looked depressed). One of the cages was so packed that the chickens couldn’t move. Paula asked about the prices of the different varieties and chose a black chicken which cost 29 RMB (about $4.25). The woman grabbed the chicken out of the cage and took it to the back of her stall where she killed it, feathered it, and scrapped out its guts (which were packaged up in a little plastic bag). After about 10 minutes, we received a bird in a bag with its claws sticking up stiff out of the top.

At Paula’s place we studied for a few hours while the bird chilled out in the fridge. Eventually we got hungry, so Paula went to work. She had never butchered a whole chicken before, so it took a bit of experimenting. She eventually managed to cut off as much meat as possible to go into her curry dish. One thing that was interesting was that this was a black chicken, so the skin and some of the meat were blackish-purple, compared to the pale pink/beige of our packaged chicken in US supermarkets. Supposedly, according to the ladies at the little quick mart we stopped at, the black chicken is preferable to others. Also, we learned later that black chickens are sought after for their medicinal value in Cantonese cooking.

Well, it turned out very good. Paula stewed it with eggplant, onion and carrots in an Indian curry sauce. Bon Appetito!

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Photos

Dinner is served
From market to bowl in about 5 hours.

Comments

[Garrett]

Blue Chicken?
OK, so I just lost my appetite... some of the meat was a little blackish-puple??? It all blended in weel w/ the eggplant :)