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About once per month, my mother prepares chicken with rice and a currysauce with pineapple. I don't know exactly what the method of preparation is of the chicken because it's prepared by one of those traveling grilling trucks.

However, what I do know is that there is a small (like 2 cm wide and half a cm deep) cavity in one of the hips of the chicken that's filled with really tasty meat. The cavity is open on the inside and I think it's the best part of the chicken. It appears to be some kind of organ meat, but I'm not sure what exactly it is. I also don't have a picture of the meat, sorry.

What could this meat be?

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2 Answers 2

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Those are the chicken oysters -- muscle meat, not organ meat. I'm glad you've learnt to enjoy them by intuition, as they are indeed a prized portion of the chicken.

Wikipedia tells me the French call this portion sot-l'y-laisse: "(only) a fool leaves it there", because it is little known, easily missed, and much prized.

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    The French wiki article is actually really unclear: it mentions two definitions (depending on the dictionary), and is a little vague about what they are. This article cited as a source clarifies: one possible definition is indeed the oysters (which a "fool" could accidentally miss), and one is the tail section (which a "fool" could mistakenly discard as inedible). After discussing usage in the 18th century, it actually concludes that it must be the tail section, because the term is singular.
    – Cascabel
    Jul 27, 2014 at 23:34
  • On the other hand, Wikipedia editors have decided that the English article about chicken oysters and the French one about sot-l'y-laisse are referring to the same thing, while also referring to them as huîtres de poulet (literally chicken oysters). I'm not sure what the modern usage in France is. (My very helpful wife is from Quebec.)
    – Cascabel
    Jul 27, 2014 at 23:37
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Most experts say this small part of the chicken is actually kidney, since it taste a lot like liver, not meat as in any other muscle on the chicken. It also is not attached by any tendons as a muscle would be.

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    Source for "most experts"? Jul 21, 2022 at 23:56
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