Reflections on the chicken’s bum
A number of my readers have professed their love for Nando’s – this post is especially for you (and all the other chicken lovers too)!
We’d talked during the week about going out for dinner on Friday night, but both decided to see how we felt on Friday afternoon. It had been a really busy week for both of us, and come Friday arvo the thought of just going straight home, kicking off my shoes, slipping into comfy clothes and relaxing with something takeaway and tasty sounded much more appealing than going out for the evening. Luckily, Jac felt much the same. She offered to stop by Nando’s on her way home and get chicken and salad for our dinner.
For those who don’t know, Nando’s is a chain that specialises in Portugese chargrilled chicken. You can have your chicken basted with mild, medium or hot peri peri sauce, or, if you’re not into spicy, lemon and herb. I sometimes have medium peri peri, but most of the time I find that mild provides just the right amount of bite for me. Jac got us a whole chicken with mild peri peri basting, a garden salad and chips as a combo deal for AU$27.00. The chicken had been quartered, and look- it was a whole chicken quartered, all right – they even included the bishop’s nose. That’s the name I grew up calling the chicken’s bum*. Jac calls it the parson’s nose. I’ve also heard of it being called a pope’s nose. What’s your name for the chicken’s bum? I’m interested to know if anyone has any other names for it, or if the names are all pretty much just variations of clergymen. Oh, and a second question – do you like to eat the chicken’s bum? Personally, I don’t, but it doesn’t get wasted in our household because Jac likes to eat it. You’d think with my love for skin and the generally fattier bits related to meat the chicken’s bum would fit right in, but strangely, it doesn’t! It has a flavour and texture that I don’t quite like.
The garden salad included mixed lettuce, red and green capsicum, cucumber and red onion. I thought it was a good idea that the onion was left in one big piece, so the whole salad wasn’t all oniony, and it onion itself was easy to avoid. I don’t like raw onion in a garden salad. Jac, on the other hand, loves her onion. She didn’t eat all that onion though – there really was a lot of it.
The chips were fantastic! They were crisp, not at all greasy, and their flavour was almost buttery.
Even the white meat part of the chicken looked great!
I buttered myself a slice of fresh “high-fibre loaf” Jac had bought from Baker’s Delight. This bread is my current favourite – it is always so fluffy and soft. It tastes like white bread but is apparently high in fibre (hence its name of “high fibre loaf”). A win-win, really. I grabbed myself a couple of handfuls of salad and chips and a chicken leg, thigh and wing. Bone sucking good!
*Technically some might argue it’s not a bum – it’s the pointy bit at the end of the chicken that the tail feathers stick out of. I found out its proper name! It’s the pygostyle! There’s a bit of quiz night trivia for you! So I could re-phrase my second question: Are you a pygostyler? :)