Trick to 'magically' make grilled chicken feet

To "magically" transform chicken feet to increase profits, the most common method "traders" use is to inject water to increase weight.

If you have the chance to witness the scene of small traders "magically" creating chicken feet and large restaurant staff preparing grilled chicken feet in conditions where raw meat is next to cooked meat, with bare hands marinating ingredients and picking up trash... as reflected below, how will diners feel about this "specialty"?

Ly Van Phuc “grilled chicken feet” street (Dong Da district, Hanoi) has long been known as one of the biggest chicken feet consuming places in Hanoi. The most crowded shop is located at the end of the street. 8:30 pm is the busiest time of the shop with customers sitting close together at dirty plastic tables.

Hundreds of chicken legs, wings, gizzards… after being pre-processed and marinated are all “skewered” and put into plastic buckets. And the boxes containing chicken legs and spices are thrown loosely right at the grillers’ feet.

When there are too many customers, the marinated meat skewers, chicken legs, chicken wings… have all been used up, the restaurant staff picks up the used skewers, takes turns using their bare hands to poke and dip the chicken legs into a plastic bucket to cover them with a so-called “special spice mixture”. With the same bare hands, this staff goes around the tables picking up, cleaning up and collecting trash…

Pump water into chicken feet to increase weight.

Every day, the grilled chicken feet restaurant consumes no less than 20 kg of chicken feet, necks and wings of all kinds. The price of grilled crispy chicken feet is 9,000 VND/piece and chicken wings is 20,000 VND/piece. Customers are attracted by the plump, round chicken feet...

According to Ms. Quyen, the owner of a stall specializing in selling chicken feet at Dich Vong Hau market, chicken feet are currently divided into 3 types. The special type is large, fat, meaty chicken feet, priced at about 70,000 VND/kg. The second type costs 60,000 VND and the smallest type costs around 50,000 VND/kg. However, according to her, type 3 feet can be "magically" transformed into special types.

Another trader revealed that to “magically” increase profits by transforming chicken feet, the most common method used by “traders” is to inject water to increase the weight of the chicken feet. “When injecting water into chicken feet, you should not use a large syringe, but only a medium-sized needle so that the water goes in evenly and ensures that it does not squirt out. The person injecting the water holds the syringe and injects water along the toes of the chicken feet.”

The woman emphasized: “You need to pump water in the opposite direction, do not pump water from the knee or it will quickly be sprayed out.” The chicken leg after being pumped with water will gain weight equivalent to 50 ml of water.

The spread out chicken leg has been filled with water, but the folded chicken leg has not been filled with water.

To distinguish whether chicken feet are “padded” or not, according to Ms. Quyen, chicken feet that have not been injected with water will have four toes that are completely bent inward, and when held or squeezed, the meat will swell out. Chicken feet that have been injected with water will release a lot of water. Chicken feet that have been injected with water will have four toes that are stretched and large, the more water there is, the more the feet stretch, and the toes are clearly separated.

The buyer just needs to hold the chicken foot up and gently stroke it from the sole down. If water is pumped in, the foot will release water drop by drop, or after a while the chicken foot will be wet as if it had just been soaked in water.

According to Zing.vn