Friday afternoon at work, we somehow got on the topic of cutting up a whole chicken and how easy it is to really make a mess of the poor bird. Luckily, it is also fairly to learn how to do it quickly and without ruining the pieces. I learn how to dispatch a chicken in a class I took at Frasier’s Gourmet. I think I’ve done 8 chickens now and am finally getting the hang of it, so I thought I would post my process – pictures included! Though not particularly graphic or bloody, I’ll put in this disclaimer: We are going to cut up a chicken and dislocate bones etc. If you don’t want to see that, I suggest reading one of my other posts…

You only need a few items to complete the process…

1) A good quality and extremely sharp boning knife. Remember dull knives are more dangerous than sharp knives.

2) cutting board set inside a high sided baking sheet. The baking sheet helps catch any juices that run off the board. The less raw chicken juice / parts lying around the lower the chance of contamination.

3) Somewhere to put the parts when you’ve freed them.

Finally…

One whole chicken. If there is a bag in the cavity with goodies in it, go ahead and remove it. You can do with the parts whatever you like.

Before we get going too far, there are a couple of pieces of wisdom I’ve learned that I’ll pass on. First, gravity is the butcher’s friend any time you can lift up a small part from the main body and let gravity help separate the joint, do it. Second, remember whatever you’re cutting is already dead so you’re not going to hurt it. Decide where you want to cut and do it. Third use a super sharp knife. Yes, I know I mentioned it already, but it is worth repeating. If you don’t have a good boning knife, go get one – seriously.

Keeping those bits in mind, it’s time to cut up a chicken. Let’s start with the wings.

Lift the chicken up a little bit by one of its wings and feel for the joint where the wing meets the chest. Using a circular motion, cut a ring around that joint. Once you’ve done that push the wing up toward where the neck would be to dislocate it. Once dislocated, you can cut through the remaining muscle and ligaments easily and off comes a wing. Pick up the other wing and repeat.

Next up is the leg and thigh – which will be removed as one piece. In the photo above, I am pointing to an opaque line of skin that runs between the leg/thigh area and the main part of the body. This is the chicken conveniently showing you where to cut. Cutting the skin along this line will allow you to easily see where the line between light and dark meat is. In the photo below, you can see that this cut is only a skin cut. It is done to help with the next step.

Next up is the double dislocation. Flip the bird over and use your thumbs to feel up the thigh bone to the point where it joins the main body. This is the joint you want to dislocated to help free the leg/thigh cut. Once you’ve found the both joints put you thumb on the joint and grab the thigh underneath the bird with your other fingers like so…

Got it? Excellent! Now push down with your thumbs and lift up with your fingers and pop the thigh out of its socket. You will then have this…

At this point, I flip the bird back over and with my left hand push up on the thigh bone so you can see it and then you make a cut right behind it freeing the leg/thigh from the main body i.e.

As you can see I’m lifting up on the leg/thigh letting gravity help me cut. If you look closely, just to the right of where my knife point is, you see a pink circular piece of bone. That’s the thigh bone you just dislocated. Cut just behind it like in the picture and the leg/thigh will come right off.

At this point if you want to remove the leg from the thigh, you can. You would treat it just like a wing and make a circle cut at the joint get it to separate and then cut through the separation to free the leg. I don’t have pictures of this because I wanted mine to stay together.

When you have removed both leg/thighs, you will be left with this:

Unless I’m going to fry the chicken, I will remove the skin from the breasts. It is very easy to do. Just work your fingers between the skin and the breasts and pull them apart. The skin will come off the breast meat but stay attached to the breast bone. One quick slice and the skin comes off all in one piece leaving this:

Now for the breasts. Right down the middle of the chicken runs the breast bone. Place the tip of your knife just to one side of the breast bone and using short strokes slice down the side of the bone from top to bottom. Once you get to the bottom of the breast bone, you will feel the rib cage on your knife. At this point I turn the bird just a bit and work my knife down the rib cage. Again, from the top to the bottom. It looks a little like this:

Once separated, you will have the breast with the tenderloin still attached. The tenderloin is what a place like TGI Friday’s will turn into “Chicken Strips”. Fry ‘em up and dip them in some BBQ – now we’re talking. In the picture below, the tenderloin is in my hand and the breast is on the tray – about to be separated from one another.

Once you have both breasts and tenderloins removed, you will be left with this.

This is what is used to make stock. You can freeze this then when you have 3 of them or so, thaw them out and use them to make stock – which is a whole other post.

This is a great way to save a couple of bucks on your chicken bill. Yes, it takes a little time. Yes, it takes a little practice. But, it is so nice to have freshly cut parts for dinner, and stock in the freezer for making killer soups and sauces. Now go buy a chicken and give it a try!!