Mar 28, 2012 4 min read

Chicken shouldn’t explode.

It was a normal — or as normal as it can get — Saturday afternoon in our home. We had lunched on sandwiches, not the best thing diet-wise, but it was quick and easy. However, my wife always likes to prepare a nice meal on the weekend when she has more time to concentrate on a menu.

The meat course was to be chicken. I prefer beef, but my wife thinks I eat too much of it. So when she controls the skillet, I’m usually pretty sure it will be chicken or pork.

She had placed three large frozen chicken breasts in a skillet with some oil and set the temperature on low so they would slowly thaw and cook at the same time. We usually buy bags of chicken tenders — strips of breast already pared into nice little morsels — but learned that you can get eight ounces more in a bag of breasts for the same price.

Well, as we were relaxing in the living room talking about plans for the rest of the weekend, we heard a sound like someone smacking a feather pillow very hard and then the clatter of metal.

Investigating the noise, we found the skillet lid on the floor, one of the chicken breasts hanging out of the pan and bits of chicken all over the stove top, nearby counter and floor.

There was only one conclusion. The chicken had exploded.

How? We didn’t know. But the evidence spoke for itself. It had definitely blasted its way out of the frying pan. No criminal science investigation team could have concluded otherwise.

At first we thought that since it had been cooking at such low heat somehow a vacuum had been created. But that wouldn’t explode. If anything it would just make the lid harder to remove from the skillet.

We examined the chicken. It looked all right. There was nothing suspicious about it. It didn’t bear any burn marks or smell like some kind of pyrotechnic material. It was a little frayed but nothing else.

I began drawing all kinds of hypotheses. Could it have been some new terrorist plot? Not entirely out of the question. But exploding chicken? Pretty nefarious, but what could it accomplish? Starving us to death? That’s pretty far-fetched. Nah. Couldn’t be that. Maybe some nut tampered with it at the factory? Or maybe it was a gag chicken that got misplaced. I doubt that. I’ve heard of exploding cigars and rubber chickens but never rubber cigars and exploding chickens.

Then I feared if the government learned of the incident we would all probably be forced to wear special protective clothing before we again fire up a frying pan. Everyone donning fireproof aprons, face shields, asbestos gloves — oops — not asbestos but gloves of some other suitable heat resistant material. And I’m sure some consumer-conscious congressman would insist that all such foods bear warning labels in at least six different languages. Chicken might join the “dangerous foods” list. You know what I’m talking about. Stuff that tastes good but isn’t (supposedly) good for you.

So what made it blow up?

I mentioned it at the office, and a coworker said she once checked the ingredients of a similar bag of frozen chicken breasts and found that the processor added extra water.

“Was your wife cooking it in oil? It probably exploded because it was frozen and some water hit the hot oil,” she suggested.

That sounded very plausible. Simple. But plausible. Everyone knows what happens when cold water hits hot oil.

But would I share that theory with my wife? I’m not that crazy about chicken to begin with. The only part I’ll eat is the breast or white meat that has been thoroughly de-boned. It seems like the event is a good reason to stick to beef and ban the bird.

Could I withhold the information and play such a fowl — er — foul trick on my wife?

Take a guess.

Have a good day.

James Pletcher Jr. is HeraldStandard.com business editor. He can be reached at 724-439-7571 or by email at jpletcher@heraldstandard.com.