On Chicken Fat

Or, Why You Buy Chicken Breasts Without Thinking About It.

Recently, while looking at the meat case at my local grocery store, I suddenly became aware of the high price of decent looking chicken breasts. I was astonished at the prices; usually my store has something on sale, reducing the price to something rather more palatable. Not this day, however.

Of course, right next to the cold chicken breasts were chicken thighs. They looked mostly the same as the breasts, with a bit more fat. I imagine this fat makes for a nice stock, and perhaps also decent fried chicken (though I've never done it myself). I knew, as many a KFC eater does, that thighs are dark meat, and while I have a preference for white meat myself, I thought the 60% price reduction would be no problem.

As it turns out, I chose poorly.

While the usual dark meat characteristics showed up in my dish, I didn't anticipate how long it would take me to cut the fat off (and out of) the meat. It took me nearly 20 minutes to prepare less than a pound of meat, and I ended up throwing away a decent part of the weight I'd purchased to fat and trimmings that didn't suit my purposes. I found that it was much easier and faster to cut the fat out of mostly frozen thighs, but next time, I will buy the breasts even if they are more expensive. 


*A youtube prize for the reader who picks out the movie references in this post. There are at least three that you should be able to catch.