We’ve been buying our chicken lately from Food City. They carry several brands that are Halal – even have the HFAC seal of approval stamped on the packaging. We’ve been buying it from Food City ever since we had that problem misbehavin’ chicken.
The chicken Food City carries is frozen. Well, they probably have fresh chicken, too, but much more expensive would be my guess. I don’t know for sure – I’m just projectin’ my biased North American prejudices and ethnocentricities onto the Sri Lankan food market.
Whatever. We buy the chicken frozen and whole. Three at a time, thus far. I guess Fahim wants to just stock up and get it over and done with.
This has affected us (me more so than Fahim in some cases) in a few different ways.
- the chicken no longer comes with designer pebbles and dirt – less washing I have to do. Or should I say less scrubbing?
- the feathers are all removed – yippee! If this one isn’t obvious, let me know. I’ll provide you with more enlightenment.
- it takes up more space in the freezer – because we’re buying more of it at a time. Less room for things like ice cream. 🙁
- it’s no longer skinned and butchered – so I have to do it. But this isn’t that big a deal – I actually do know how to efficiently skin and butcher a chicken.
- it’s frozen whole – so when I thaw it, I have to cook the whole thing at one time. No more cooking one day’s worth of chicken at a time. The chicken would go bad – even kept in the fridge – if we tried doing it that way. Probably. Just not a risk I’m willing to take.
So I’ve taken to thawing a chicken, skinning and butchering it, and cooking it every oh, four days or so. Because we have interruptions in there for fish and seafood, and soup from the gizzards and bones.
Today is a chicken day.
But today is also a Severely Modified Ratatouille day. So the chicken breasts go into the ratatouille – chunked. The rest is being cooked (Ginger Chicken – yum!) and will then go into the fridge for the next few days.
I just thought you should know. That’s all.
And Sinhalese classes tomorrow are cancelled.
