HELP ME!! Is there a cook here???
 

Let me preface this with normally I do not cook. ok, I NEVER COOK....last night I attempted to make a chicken. I bought a package of nice big Tyson's chicken breasts (boneless, skinless). I put 2 of them in a pan with a little bread crumbs on them. I put them in the oven at the normal temp for the normal time (350 degrees for 30 minutes) Here is what happened:

After about 10 minutes I heard a very loud popping sound. I thought, gee I wonder if that is normal, hmmm...chicken must pop when it is cooked!!?? I never went in to check it.

Over the course of the next 20 minutes it popped 5 more times.

The buzzer went off and I went the the oven....the chicken had exploded all over the oven, top, sides, bottom, everywhere. Not just exploded but what remained of my chicken was this little half dollar sized chicken breast burnt to a charcoal and out of morbid curiosity I cut it open (sicko!!) and this black stuff oozed out of the center of it....

So of course I called a relative (who is 78 years old) and told her she had to come over and see this....in all her years she had never seen anything like this...she had heard of turkey's exploding, but never chicken...and the black ooze that came out of the center of the meat was unidentifiable.

So I have spent the past 2 hours googling chicken exploded -- chicken explodes black ooze etc etc etc

I can not find one instance of this ever happening to another human being on the face of this planet (why me??) except there was on instance I found which is a URBAN LEGEND of the woman who bites into a KFC chicken and it explodes and puss comes out an the result is a tumor in the chicken.

Can someone please help me out here......is there an explaination for this other than an urban legend.

I will never cook again after this.....when I was young (18) and I got my first apartment my room mate and I attempted to cook chicken once and the oven was broken and it took 6 hours to cook the chicken, I realized that day that it is just best for me to make reservations if I want to eat and I have never cooked since, until last night......

Please , help....... I need some logical rationalization....do you have a friend, mother, cousin, boyfriend, anyone who has had this happen to them????

Holy sh*t. I will ask my mother and other cooks I know. What a bizarre story. Makes me want to be a vegetarian. :eek:

Are you sure that your oven's thermometer is correct and it was really only at 350 degrees? Also, were those breadcrumbs or bits of explosive? :laugh: Maybe the coating acted as a seal and kept the juices inside until they exploded? Check the date on the package to see if it was old. Maybe it was full of bacteria? I don't blame you if you never cook chicken again, I have never heard of anything like this happening to anyone. Don't you feel lucky?

Incidentally, I really love your avatar and just got a necklace with that symbol that's gorgeous. Merry Christmas to me!



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The date on the chicken package was not out of date. The bread crumbs do not have a date. But when I pulled the paper/foil lid off the can the smell was fresh breadcrumbs (is that an oxymoron? Fresh-bread-crumbs...LOL)

ANYONE ELSE??

I am so stressed out about this.

how awful for you :( sounds nightmarish...i quit chicken sometime ago...you should too :nod:

This has been bugging me today, so since I'm at my overly demanding job (ha) I decided to try and research this for you. This was ALL I could come up with, which is probably what you've found as well.

3-4 lb Chicken
2 small lemons
freshly ground black pepper
salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). Wash the chicken inside
and out with cold water and remove any bits of fat hanging loose.
Thoroughly drain the bird, pat it dry all around with either a tea towel or
kitchen roll.

Sprinkle a generous amount of salt and pepper all over the chicken, inside
and out, rubbing it in with your fingers.

Wash the lemons in cold water and dry them as for the chicken. Soften each
one by rolling it back and forth on a counter top apply firm pressure with
the palm of your hand. Puncture each lemon at least 20 times with a
cocktail stick, trussing needle or similar pointed implement. Place both
lemons in the bird's cavity and close it up (both ends) using cocktail
sticks or trussing needle and string. Close it well but not absolutely
airtight otherwise the chicken may well explode! As it is the chicken will
puff up during cooking and makes for an appealing presentation at the
table. Tie the two chicken legs together in their normal position (do not
pull tight), this is only to prevent the thighs from spreading and
splitting the skin.

Blah blah blah [deleted the rest of the recipe- no one cares, right?] As for the black ooze, I just have no idea. :sorry:

A chicken that explodes in a 350-degree oven after only ten minutes is just ... not ... possible ... It's certainly a curiosity. Something is fishy with this henpecked chicken tale. Details are scant--downright poultry, if you ask me. :lol: :lol: :laugh:

As for the black ooze, gadzooks. I have no clue.

I'd climb right back on that horse, however. Buy some more chicken breasts, pat them with a little olive oil & coat them with breadcrumbs, & try baking them again. But don't buy Tyson--buy another brand (Zachy Farms or something).

And make sure your oven temp is calibrated.

I think this is a clear-cut case of.....Sabotage!!!

Honestly, I've no idea. I've been cooking chicken the exact same way to years, and nothing like that's ever happened. :shrug:

Chicken....."can be".... nasty. Almost without exception, I will only buy boneless, skinless(I actually wish they'd include the skin) pieces. When the bones are there, especially after being frozen for awhile, you sometimes get that black **** on the bones.:eek: Nasty. Absolutely nasty. My Mom and I decided, like 10 years ago, that boneless was the only way to go.
Best deal is Sam's Club. BIG flats of breasts, or thighs(I'm a dark meat guy) for about $10.

Ok I went to a neighbors and borrowed on of those thermometers that you put in the oven to check the temperature (I have high end GE appliances, for gods sake it even has a Shabbot setting) and the temperature is perfect.

Ok here is my process.... I took the chicken out of the package, I washed it, put foil on the bottom of a pan, put the chicken in the pan, sprinkled bread crumbs on top of the chicken (a little bread crumbs went on the foil, but nothing significant) while the oven preheated to 350. The oven buzzed that it was ready and I put the pan in and that was it. Again, the first pop sound was pretty loud and I presume that was when one of the chicken breasts exploded. The other five pop sounds were not as loud and they happened every 3 minutes or so. Honestly I thought it was normal. There was no one else in my home when it happened (so it is not like someone came along and cranked the temp and ran away) and I could not smell the burning flesh smell until I opened the oven. When I opened the oven there were hundreds of bits and pieces of chicken (or so I presume that is what it was) on all the walls of the oven, burnt. (believe me, everything went through my mind...was there something else in the oven? Lizard? Nope not big enough...(I live in a high rise, so it is unlikely it was anything else) Plus, I looked in the oven when I put the chicken in, the light was on inside and I commented to myself....ohhh...how nice and shiny new....I am christening my 3 year old oven. (The only thing I have even made in the oven is toll house cookies)

The two pieces of chicken breast remaining were burnt like little hockey pucks, at this point I was horrified that my stove was ruined with this smegma, I swore a lot, and I could not figure out what went wrong. While waiting for my aunt to come over, with the pan sitting on the stovetop, I thought I would cut into them just to see if they burnt all the way through..... there was some kind of flesh left under the black charcoal, and when I cut it there was black ooze that oozed onto the pan where I cut. At that point I was so grossed out I thought I was going to puke.


Can bread crumbs start on fire because they are dry? Is it possible my chicken was on fire?

Maybe there was some water on the chicken because I washed it and it clumped the bread crumbs in the pan into a ball and they started on fire?

Seriously I may never eat chicken again. I asked my mom, btw, and she's never heard of an exploding chicken. Good luck with your chicken research!

oh my god...the images in my head

I may never eat again...

which, oddly enough, will dramatically help my diet

Honey, I think you just bought a bad chicken..... Honestly. There is no explanation for this. Chicken just dosen't do that. Maybe it was tampered with before you got it? :shrug:

Ok, I am trying to move on.

I can not believe that I am letting a freaking chicken affect my entire day, (possibly my entire life, where cooking is involved). Here I am, a successful, strong, independent woman who is letting two little breasts beat me down.