Kosher Malaysian Chickens

In the US when I cooked chicken, which I usually did for shabbat, I went to the store, and I got kosher chicken in a packet - usually either boneless skinless breasts or "cut-up chicken." No prob. Came home, gave her a little clean and popped her in the oven.

We kept kosher in New York. Pretty strict. When we moved here, we left our kosher kitchen at home (mostly) and decided to be vegetarian here (mostly). There was one day where I experimented with prawn (shrimp) soup (I can't find the post, but I believe I blogged about it, because I remember having anxiety about rabbi/teachers of mine reading it...), but really, our home here has been vegetarian. Matt is pretty adamantly vegetarian at home, also, because he believes that we should only eat about three meals per week with meat, and it's easier to be veg at home than it is when you go out...(many, many discussions...). He doesn't actually care about kashrut.

I convinced him that if we were going to do Passover in Singapore, as it was my first one away from home, then I would have to make chicken soup and chicken. How else could it be done? I decided that if I were going to cook a chicken or two for Passover, at least they should be kosher. So I ventured to the kosher shop to get a couple of birds.

The first bird I bought was skinless. Seemed that it would be easier to manage. Then I realised that I didn't know how to cook a whole chicken with no skin. Back to the kosher shop to get another bird with skin.

In the end, I got two. I learned that the chickens are raised in Malaysia, and the rabbi (I believe) kills a whole bunch of them each week, or month, or something, and then we get to eat them. They are sort of small, but they are yummy. I believe that the hard core meat is all imported from Australia, but I haven't ventured to that part of the freezer yet.

With a bit of help from my mom, I decided to use the naked chicken for my chicken soup and the fully clothed one for the chicken dish. The chicken dish required that the chicken sit in lemon juice for a day. I went to take out the chicken to start to clean it, and...oops...it's like for real a whole bird. Blood, neck and everything. I got pretty grossed out. Where's my "cut-up" and clean chicken? I felt super American and princessy, but I wasn't too keen on this bird. My helper, Rose, happened to come out right when I was looking uneasily at the chicken, and she said, "do you know how to clean a chicken?" "No. Do you?" "Of course! I grew up on a farm. Do you want me to clean it?" "YES! Can you!? That would be awesome." I went to the botanic gardens, and she cleaned my chicken (apparently there were a lot of feathers left - grody!). The skinless one wasn't as bad, once I got it out of the bloody bag, I was able to just wash it (though I didn't like handling the thing, and I couldn't believe how long its neck was). All of the food came out really well - especially the chicken soup - but I need to enter negotiations with my husband to be able to make it again. I'm working on it.