Chicken as Food- Lesser Known Facts about the Most Popular Poultry

Chicken is one of the most common types of poultry that is served throughout the world as different recipes. In our country, Punjabi chicken dishes have always managed to steal our hearts. Starting right from chicken fry masala to gravy recipes, like chicken-do-pyaza and butter chicken have always been out our favourites.

But, first let us learn all the parts of chicken that are used in the kitchen to prepare different recipes over the world.

Main:

1. Breast: These are white meat and are relatively dry.
2. Leg: Comprises two segments:

• The “drumstick”; this is dark meat and is the lower part of the leg,
• The “thigh”; also dark meat, this is the upper part of the leg.

3. Wing: Often served as a light meal or bar food. Buffalo wings are a typical example. Comprises three segments:

• The “drumette” shaped like a small drumstick, this is white meat,
• The middle “flat” segment, containing two bones, and
• The tip, often discarded.

Other:

4. Chicken feet: These contain relatively little meat, and are eaten mainly for the skin and cartilage. Although considered exotic in Western cuisine, the feet are common fare in other cuisines, especially in the Caribbean and China.
5. Giblets: organs such as the heart, gizzards, and liver may be included inside a butchered chicken or sold separately.
6. Head: Considered a delicacy in China, the head is split down the middle, and the brains and other tissue is eaten.
7. Kidneys: Normally left in when a broiler carcass is processed, they are found in deep pockets on each side of the vertebral column.
8. Neck: This is served in various Asian dishes. It is stuffed to make helzel among Ashkenazi Jews.
9. Oysters: Located on the back, near the thigh, these small, round pieces of dark meat are often considered to be a delicacy.
10. Pygostyle (chicken’s buttocks) and testicles: These are commonly eaten in East Asia and some parts of South East Asia.

By-products:

11. Blood: Immediately after slaughter, blood may be drained into a receptacle, which is then used in various products. In many Asian countries, the blood is poured into low, cylindrical forms, and left to congeal into disc-like cakes for sale. These are commonly cut into cubes, and used in soup dishes.
12. Carcase and back: After the removal of the flesh, this is used for soup stock.
13. Chicken eggs: The most well-known and well-consumed by-product.
14. Heart and gizzard: in Brazilian churrascos, chicken hearts are an often seen delicacy.
15. Liver: This is the largest organ of the chicken, and is used in such dishes as Pâté and chopped liver.
16. Schmaltz: This is produced by rendering the fat, and is used in various dishes.

I am sure you never had though that a chicken could possibly be used for these many parts. For a lay man, chicken drums and chicken thighs are all the same. Jokes aside, I hope you have a better idea now. This article has given me chicken cravings. So what are you going to start with, chicken fry masala recipes or simply go for tandoor?

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