Famous chicken and Rambutan

   Yesterday a package arrived at the office for my team. It turns out that one of the guys on my team, Oliver who is still on holiday in his home town, sent us a package of goodies. It was a treat that his hometown is famous for, guess what it was....wait for it...

Hurry up and open the package, Ewgenia!
(She was SO excited!)

...preserved chicken!

Left, there were 12 of these chickens in the package. Right, have you ever

seen more beautiful chicken models before?!

   Honestly, from the packaging alone I was a little frightened. If you can see clearly in the above picture on the left, the perfectly golden chicken is placed happily and somewhat deformed on platter, head and all. Part of me, of course, was very curious and in need of some protein for dinner....turned out to be good timing.  After little hesitation during dinner making, I grabbed a pair of scissors and tore open the vacuum sealed foil packet and voile...

   ...a gelatinous mass of meat and bones, no head (YAY!).  I was and still am a bit confused what part of the chicken that I got b/c the meat is extremely dark and I can't seem to find a breast, even though it appears to be half of a chicken (shouldn't every half chicken have a breast?). I will say that it is super tender and falls right off the bone. I took some of the meat and made a chicken and cheese quesadilla. It's very flavorful, not sure all natural flavor or not but kind of good, maybe a little salty. I dug into the chicken a little more today and it tasted just as good but have been finding lots of little broken bones within the meat. The bird must have been whacked in half with one giant stroke, with one giant knife (causing the bones to shatter).

That's not the only new thing that I got to try :)

  As Ewgenia was packing up to leave the office she pulled out some mysterious fruit and set it on my desk. I've seen this fruit before but didn't know the English name. She told me that she brought them back from her home town and she wanted me to try them....she's so good at sharing new things with me :) Actually, everyone on me team is good at sharing with me. One of my goals last night was to bring this fruit home, along with my new chicken, and figure out the name to share with Ewgenia on Friday. The search was really easy, I googled "Asian fruit" and instantly saw pictures of what I had sitting in my hands. Turns out they are...

...Rambutan

   One website had this to say about them:

Native to Malay Archipelago, Southeast Asia

Coming from an evergreen tree, the Rambutan fruit resembles the Lychees, have a leathery red skin and are covered with spines. Rambutan is a popular garden fruit tree and one of the most famous in Southeast Asia. The fruit is sweet and juicy, being commonly found in jams or available canned.

I say, they are delicious! I am a huge Lychee fan and these rambutans are similar but better. Bigger, meatier and more of a citrus flavor! They also have a pit inside of them so you have to be careful while eating. And, they are harder to peal (I needed to use a knife).

Here's a slightly more professional picture that I found,

it does the fruit more justice.

They are worth a try if you ever see them in the supermarket.