Sunday, January 22, 2012

My Chicken Surprise

My Chicken Surprise.


When we first moved to Belize a week ago, I met this really nice lady named Gloria.  She sets up her BBQ grill on the beach a few blocks from our house and cooks chickens every day except Sunday and Monday.  She told me she rests on those two days.  You can buy a chicken plate for $10.00BZE ($5.00US) and they are really good.  I have purchased chicken from her several times especially when we still didn't have our oven working yet. 


Everything I need to bake my chicken.


Ready to go in the oven.


Now that our oven is working, I thought I would try baking a chicken myself.  I found a very simple Belize recipe for cooking a whole chicken on the Internet.  I needed one chicken, garlic powder, pepper and recado rojo.  I had heard of the recado rojo before but I really didn't know what it was.  Recado rojo or achiote paste as it is called is a blend of spices that usually includes annatto, Mexican oregano, cumin, clove, cinnamon, black pepper, allspice, garlic and salt.  The annatto seeds are what give the paste the red color.  I actually thought it was some kind of dry spice.  I went to several different grocery stores and could not find recado rojo in the spice secton.  So I finally asked for it.  I was looking for a dry spice, when instead it was a paste.  The package had no name on it and they had it up next to the cash register, so I would have never found it.


Chicken Feet


My baked chicken.

The first thing the recipe said was to wash the chicken.  So I am washing this chicken I bought.  Now grant you I have only cooked a few chickens in my life and I know sometimes they will stuff these extra body parts inside the chicken.  So I am thinking to myself, I better check to see if there is anything inside this chicken that I need to remove before cooking.  The first thing I pulled out was the liver.  I knew there was still something in there.  Then it was my chicken surprise.  I really wasn't sure what they were are first.  I pulled it out and quickly dropped them on the counter.  I had never pulled anything that looked like this out of my chicken.  It was two chicken feet or claws I guess is what they are actually called, yuck.  I mean I know chicken have them, but I just have never seen them inside a chicken before.  Seriously do people really eat this part of the chicken?  While the chicken turned out really good and had a great taste, I think I will be going back to get my chicken from Gloria.

5 comments:

  1. Indeed, yuck!! Never seen them stuffed in a chicken before....yuh betta Belizeit!

    ReplyDelete
  2. They use the chicken feet as good luck voodoo thing. Hang them upside down on chains and hang them from their car mirrors

    lol Gigi

    ReplyDelete
  3. My husband loves chicken feet! We live here in Maya Beach (near Placencia) in the winter time, and "chicken foot" is his favourite part of stew chicken!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well maybe I will give them a try next time Sandy and will report back.

    ReplyDelete
  5. They were yuck Linda, I have never seen them inside a chicken either. Too bad I don't have a car in Belize, so I guess I won't need them hanging in my car. haha

    ReplyDelete

Leave a comment "dear friend"