6.4.06

That's NOT supposed to be in my chicken!

Happy 100th post, to me.

Ah, the things I have learned over these last 100 posts...the friends I have made, the pictures I have taken, the stories that have unfolded... I was feeling very comforted as I thought about what I would like to post for my big 1-0-0. So, this on my mind, and thinking of all of the new recipes I had tried and new dishes I had attempted, I decided I wanted to do something classic: A roasted chicken.

But alas, no picture today. Believe me when I say that this is a blessing for you. You wouldn't have wanted to see a picture of my chicken anyway... or at least not what was hiding, nestled inside the leg of this particular chicken...

I was trying out Martha Stewart's version of roasted chicken, cooked on a bed of thickly sliced onions and with sprigs of tarragon and thin slices of garlic placed gently between the skin and the breast meat, giving it a deliciously subtle, yet still distinct, anise-y flavor (not too much as you wouldn't want that "grassy, manure-like" smell that you can get with tarragon, according to Nigella Lawson in her fabulous cookbook/food philosophy How to Eat). Everything went as well as it possibly could have, considering that I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to tuck those dumb wings under the damn bird (although I know I have done it correctly in the past!) and I still have never figured out exactly how to truss my feathered friend up. Additionally, I still get slightly grossed out pulling all the giblets (I did finally learn that this is pronounced "jib-lets," not giblets, right?) and messing around with all that extra butt skin...er, is that the neck? Whatever.

And that's just the physical act of preparing to roast a whole chicken... While doing all of this necessary fussing, a psychological war also rages: I am on the homefront, fending off all of those little tiny salmonella that I just know are hopping off of said bird onto my clean counter and playing frisbee or rugby for a while there, spreading themselves about, before beginning a game of hide and seek just as I get out the freshly microwaved sponge... yep, just there having a hayday and waiting to make me horribly ill and running for the toilet for days to come. Don't even talk to me about rubbing butter on the skin of the bird either...all I can think about is an excerpt from The Julie/Julia Project where she quotes Silence of the Lambs - "...it rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again..." Once I get past all that, I'm fine...usually.

Back to my story, though....in the oven the bird goes, in the very cheap and large roasting pan we bought to cook the turkey in for Thanksgiving when my father and stepmother came to visit two years ago, and I start washing things up/fighting the salmonella. Only to have the beejeezus scared out of me when a bomb goes off behind me...BOOOOOM! It took me quite a while to climb down from the ceiling and realize that the "bomb" was the pan warping into a twisted, bizarre-looking rendition of a metal artist's take on "Sideways Pan" in the oven. I peeked in and my poorly trussed chicken had slipped off its bed of onions and slid to one side of the pan. Nevermind that, I've dealt with this before. I simply pushed one of the onions under the bird, add some tin foil under one side of the pan (did I mention the pan doesn't really fit in our oven very well either? And that it sucks?), and on I went.

After a fair amount of time (it felt like a friggin' eternity I was so hungry!), I pulled my beautifully browned, crispy organic free-range blah blah blah bird out of my oven. You must understand that the beauty of this particular bird was a formidable feat in itself since my oven is over 100 degrees above what that little dial on the front says, and that's just in the front of the oven. The back of the oven is probably more like 400 degrees over the dial...but I haven't gotten brave enough to stick the little life-saving oven thermometer (do get one of these, please!) back there yet...even when the oven is off, it's still scary back there. I tested the temperature of the bird with an instant read thermometer and it said it was go time. So I let the chicken sit for a good 10 or 15 minutes just like I was supposed to, to save all those precious juices. I didn't take pictures, because by then I had figured that "Everyone but me can roast a stupid chicken," but now I wish I had. Here, I'll cheat: photo courtesy of Martha Stewart.


Now, where was I?

Oh, the carving. This was a disaster. I tried to follow the carving instructions on the website...cut down the leg, severing the joint (EW.) Cut the thigh loose from the drumstick (EW.)...okay, doing fine...not pretty, but I got the job done. I'll get to the other side in a second...I wanted to start on the breast meat. I cut along the backbone and starting trying to slice sideways "following the contour of the ribcage," (EW.) and this was just a mess. My pieces of chicken breast were not pretty. For that matter, neither was my thigh or drumstick, but I figured the breast should be the easy part. Nope, not easy. I whined loudly out to Loving Boyfriend, who was in the other room. Then I gave up on demolishing the breast meat and went to the other leg. Here's where it got nasty.

I dug the knife in, trying to see where it was going and pulled the meat back a bit so that I could see that pesky bone...but when I pulled the leg back, there was a BIG BLOODY SPOT HANGING OUT IN THERE!!!! Not like a little colored spot that got into the meat, like you get sometimes when you cook chicken breasts, but a BIG BLOODY JUICY SPOT GELLED UP AND LIVING COMFORTABLY IN THERE!!!! And, it was about the size of a QUARTER!!! EEEEEEEEWWWWWWW!!!

"Oh GROSS!" I yelled at Loving Boyfriend. "That's just NASTY!!"

"What? What's wrong?" Loving Boyfriend swooped in from the living room.

"There's a BIG BLOODY SPOT ON MY CHICKEN!! IT'S NOT DONE! WHY ISN'T IT DONE??? THE THERMOMETER SAID IT WAS DONE BUT IT'S GOT A BIG BLOODY SPOT. A BIG. BLOODY. SPOT. RIGHT THERE. EEEEEEEWWWWWW!!!"

"Oh, that happens sometimes, honey. It's probably finished. Look, the breast looks okay."

"But there's a SPOT. RIGHT THERE!! EEEEEEWWWW!!!!"

This exchange was followed by lots of irrepressible shudders on my part, which still come about unprovoked even days later, and Loving Boyfriend taking over the carving.

Needless to say, I only ate the breast meat. And I'm not sure what happened to the BLOODY SPOT...maybe it's still living in there, relaxing on its cushy leg chair. I think that even if I can muster up the stomach to roast another whole chicken someday, I might never have the stomach to carve another one.

Ah, yes, the adventures I have had...the lessons I have learned...

THERE HAD BETTER NEVER BE ANOTHER BLOODY SPOT ON MY CHICKEN LEG!!

15 comments from you:

Ilva said...

AUGURI!I'm happy you are still going strong and I hope you will go on for at least another 1000 posts! Hurray hurray hurray!

Cate said...

Kudos to you for going through the whole process! I get grossed out by it and if The Husband isn't around, I cheat and get a rotisserie chicken from Costco. Congrats on the 100th post! And speaking of Nigella, her show is coming to FoodTV Network in September - I am so excited!!

Stephanie said...

LOL! Hilarious! Now I know what you meant when you made your comment at my Chicken Rice adventures about similar misadventures! Actually, and not gloating here, my chicken cut up rather nicely - I surprised even myself! I love making roast chicken and the so-called oven (turbo broiler) makes fab roasties.

cookiecrumb said...

Tumor Chicken!

Kate Croft said...

One of my very first posts was "Four ways to Deal with a Freezerful of Whole Chickens"...and though everything went swimmingly up through cooking the chicken, carving it was a distaster. I basically massacred it. As for the stringing up, dealing with butt-fat, etc - may I suggest a wonderfully useful book, "Essentials of Cooking" by James Peterson, which has a pictoral blow-by-blow of both stringing and carving (though clearly even that wasn't enough to save me).

Deetsa said...

Now you have me scared of cooking the chickens I have in my freezer. I didn't have enough nerve to try it yet but now I'm worried about blood blobs. *pout*

Anonymous said...

LOL! Love the story! I would have still loved to see YOUR photo of your chicken.

Happy 100th post!

Big kiss,
Paz

evilsciencechick said...

oh my goodness! another geek scientist who like to cook!

awesome. I found you searching for late night snack recipes. But I will not be making squid in ink tonight.

anyway, just thought I'd say "hi!"

Anonymous said...

First and foremost, Michelle, congrats on reaching 100.

I'm sad to hear your roasting experience didn't unfold as you'd anticipated. I love roasting chicken. It really is THE perfect comfort food.

Of course, the great problem with all fowl is that the legs are never cooked at the same time as the breast. In Tony Bourdain's, Les Halles Cookbook, his response to this problem is straightforward:

"Understand also that legs and breasts cook at slightly different rates. In your to make sure that there is no pink (eek!) or red (oooohh!) anywhere in the legs, you are often criminally overcooking your breasts. Find a happy medium. A little pink color by the thigh bone does not mean you are eating rare poultry."

Unfortunately he does not address big red clots. Nonetheless, I like his attitude.

Now if I can just remember where I was going with this comment....

vlb5757 said...

I was the first one to post to this entry, came back and I guess I got blogger didn't like my response! Between my burned wing tips and your bloody spot, do you think we can be trusted to roast a chicken?? Don't let that chicken beat you girl, try, try, again...then order a lovely pizza!

Michelle said...

Hi Ilva! Well I just hope you will still want to be visiting me here at 1000 posts!

Hi Cate! Thanks! I get grossed out, then forget how gross it is and decide I want to do one, then get grossed out again. But I buy those little rotisserie chickens too - a big time saver! Ever since you told me about Nigella coming to the Food Network, I've been so excited! I can't wait!

Hi MM! Glad I could make you laugh since you do the same for me quite often! And I was admiring your cut-up job, too, from your pics!

Hi Cookiecrumb! EW! Unbelievably, that description actually makes it even worse!!

Hi Kate! I'm going to have to go raid your archives! And I'll also have to get that book from the library and practice, if I can bring myself to get another whole chicken. Maybe I can practice on those rotisserie chicks at the grocery store?

Hi Nerissa! Sorry, honey! I'm worried about blobs now too!!

Hi Paz! I know, I should have taken a picture...I can't believe I didn't since it was before I ruined the whole experience by chopping it into peices!! Thanks for the happy wishes!

Hi evil science chick! Thanks for stopping by. Nice to know there are others of us out there in the world, huh? To be honest, I don't think I'll be having squid ink tonight either!!

Hi Rob! Thank you, my friend. I was sad too - I've actually had good roasting experiences before, even with the little mess-ups here and there, I've actually alwasy had them come out moist and finished, and I agree, it really is wonderful comfort food...without the addition of any bloody blobs, of course. I do like Tony's take on things, and I might just have to go get that book at the library too! PS. to you: stay tuned, because I made those awesome chocolate chip cookies from the sweet kitchen this weekend. Let me just say, Oh My Gawd.

Hi Vickie! Blogger hates me sometimes too - stupid blogger. Maybe we should just teach Loving Boyfriend and Hubby to go around trussing up dead birds and dealing with bloody spots and burned wing tips - then we can just blame it on them! Thanks for the encouragement, my good friend. :)

K Allrich said...

Out out damn spot!

[I loved loved loved your blah blah blah chicken story.}

Michelle said...

Ha ha ha! Hi Karina! I agree!

kitchenmage said...

ewwww! but i'm surprised you didn't take it back to the lab for you and McAuliflower to dissect and experiment upon...

Michelle said...

Hi Kitchenmage! I became a marine biologist so that I would never have to deal with blood! McAuliflower can have it if she wants though...