Gallina de patio

The other night my host mom killed and butchered a chicken.  Apparently the hen had started to lay eggs in the forest, which, if your primary purpose in life is to provide eggs for some family, is a big no-no.  So the other night, my mom caught the chicken and killed it to make sopa de gallina de patio (backyard chicken soup).  Now, there are two ways of killing a chicken.  The first way, as I understand, is to grab it by its head and whirl it around until the head breaks off.  This, however, is not the best way to kill a chicken if you want to eat it, because this way the chicken’s heart stops beating immediately and all the blood stays in the meat.  The second way, the way my host mom killed the unruly chicken, is to hang it up by its feet and slit its neck.  This way the heart keeps beating and pushes all the blood out.  This does mean, unfortunately, that for a while after she “killed” it, it periodically would flutter its wings, reminding me of the fact that I am not a vegetarian.  Eventually, though, it died and all the blood drained out and my host mom told me she was ready to clean and butcher it, since I wanted to watch. 

First step is to get rid of the feathers, which is done by pouring or submersing it in boiling water.  The feathers will then come right off without a problem.  She then efficiently chopped the chicken into different parts – the feet, the thighs, the legs, the wings, the neck – before cutting through chest bone to take out the insides.  It was so cool!  When she pulled out the organs, they were all attached and look a lot like the plastic models in science class.  And just as colorful!  There was one organ that was light blue fading to purple, but I’m still not sure what it is called in English.  There is another organ, too, that you need to be careful not to puncture or you will ruin the entire chicken.  I’m pretty sure she took out the heart, the liver, and a few other unidentified organs to keep for their soup.  And since it was an egg-laying hen, there were a few unfertilized eggs inside that were basically just yolks, which she also kept for their soup.  The rest she discarded along with the feathers and head.  After a thorough rinsing, the edible portions were ready to cook.  It was really neat to see the process all the way through, and while I fully support chicken eating and know I would love to clean out the chicken, I’m not sure if I could actually do the killing.  I would fully support killing and eating the chicken that clucks continuously right outside my window at 5:30am.

I would also like to add that these chickens are actually free-range chickens, and I don’t meant they just have a small yard.  They basically get to wander around wherever they want eating whatever they want, so long as the dogs don’t want to eat what they want to eat.  This type of chicken is called gallina de patio, or hen from your backyard.