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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!

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  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

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  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!

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

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  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

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