Chicken is the most popular protein in the typical Malaysian diet. Almost every Malaysian will consume chicken at least once every week. I myself – would prefer chicken over beef due to its cost and health benefits.
There are generally two ways to buy chicken:
- Supermarket – where the chickens are from large suppliers such as Ayamas and Ayam A1. Chicken are bred and processed centrally.
- Market or pasar – where the chickens are slaughtered in the market and sold later part of the day.
There are also instances where the chickens in the market are supplied by corporations. Chicken in Malaysia generally are halal. I have been to many markets(pasar) in Malaysia and have not seen non-halal chicken.
The following photos are taken during my recent visit to Pasar Chow Kit. As mentioned in the earlier post, my visit was not planned. When I was young, my mum will bring me to this market almost on a weekly basis. I was not a fan of the market as it was dirty back then. The floor is wet and filled with holes. I don’t remember having to come back with clean feet as I would stepped into the holes and get my feet dirty.
The market itself is divided into many sections. On Saturday I went to the wet section. Reason being is that I parked my car in Kampung Baru and walked over to the market. The nearest entrance was the wet section.
The following photos are from the market itself. I can safely say that most of the workers there are friendly. There has not been any instance where the workers would hide or act negatively towards me. In fact they will invite me to come inside and take photos. As it was pretty early and I was still sleepy, I spent very little time here. I would love to come back again to shoot here.
The photo below shows the worker preparing the chicken for sale. The chicken that has been slaughtered will be cleaned here. I did not catch how they process the chicken from the point of slaughter to clean up. I have seen it before in Pudu Market though/
The photo below shows the chicken in the cage, waiting to be slaughtered. The chicken looked thin but I guess by the time it reaches my plate – it all looks the same. In fact, I prefer to cook a smaller chicken as it is easier to cook. Cooking larger chicken will take a lot more time especially the dark meat.
The photo below shows the man in skullcap (kopiah) slaughtering the chicken. The chicken is then thrown into the big drum. As per the halal procedure, the man will recite doa (prayers) and then in one movement slashed the neck.
The photo below shows a Bangladeshi man cleaning the chicken. The chicken that has been cleaned will be put on the table in front of the shop.
The photo below shows the clean chicken on the table. As one can see at the background, on the left the guy is cleaning the chicken while on the right the slaughtering process taking place.
I plan to come back here to properly understand the process from the get go to the chicken being sold. What’s more interesting is to understand from which farm does this chicken comes from. I have this suspicion that the chicken actually comes from the large farms that are ran by the corporation.