Killing me softly chicken

I have always fancied myself as an Igorot.
I once told a would-be soon-to-be ex-boyfriend that I was an Igorot. He mentioned my claim to my brother. My brother mentioned my claim of being an Igorot to my mother.
"Your sister is the only Igorot in the family", my mother told my brother.

So I am an Igorot by choice, not by birth. My parents and siblings and all other relatives are all Ilocanos.

Ay asis!
As an Igorot, my favorite chicken dish is Pinikpikan otherwise known in English as "Killing me Softly Chicken". I was first introduced to the English name of the recipe by Au Bejar. Au, who grew up in Baguio, and I worked in Saudi Arabia together and we were housed in a hostel for women who did not have their families with them. I was humming the song one day having just played a Luther Vandross CD and I was in the room she shared with Cindy and Vilma visiting for Ilocano conversations and something to eat. The talk went to killing me softly chicken.

Cut the crap about animals having more rights than gays in California. I have no qualms for animals being killed for dinner. I am no vegan.

As a child growing up in the tobacco growing farms of La Union, our household grew other crops as well as raise some livestock. I was practically raised with pigs, cows, cocks and hens. Some days, when there are no vegetables to cook as main fare paired with rice, we trick unsuspecting chicken by offering them grains and whoever gets caught is killed for dinner. The angry bird of my childhood!

A quick and painless death was done with one assistant child holding the head of the angry bird and my mother cutting the neck of the bird on a piece of wood called langdet. The headless bird is then drained of its blood through the guillotined neck. The blood is collected on a clean container and this would be cooked with the all the other anatomies like the spleen, liver, heart, lungs including the cleaned out intestines. The child who held the head while the bird was going through its quick death gets the cooked head that had been trimmed of its beak of course. The much coveted bird brain is taken out by the lucky child after a quick stare from the cooked angry bird.

The killing me softly chicken is prepared more arduously than the quick guillotined angry bird of my childhood.If I was the one in charge of the chicken recipe, I would pick a cock. The cock would be beaten black and blue for massive thrombosis. The beaten cock would then be roasted with its feathers over fire.

Cooking the dressed and cut-up battered cock burned to death is the easiest part. Stewed with ginger and some coarse salt, it is usually served with blanched leafy greens.