Deboning chicken leg

[helenas]

Help, please. How to debone a chicken/duck leg for stuffing?

There is a lovely recipe in Kamman's French Women Cooking book, but i was completely lost while reading the instructions: do you cut the skin, and what about all this sewing? Do you leave a piece of drumstick bone? The end result should look like tiny hams, that's why the name of the dish is jambonettes.

thanks, and maybe we can talk about deboning the whole chicken as well?

[spqr]

I am not familiar with the recipe you're having trouble with, but when I do boned, stuffed chicken legs I use a drumstick-thigh segment and I remove all bones and sinews by making an incision on the body side of the leg along the bone structure and carefully scraping and cutting. Adapting a technique I saw Pierre Franey use for stuffed cabbage, I lay out a clean tea towel, arrange the boned chicken leg on the towel so that it is roughly circular, spoon on the stuffing, fold the edges around the stuffing and then use the towel to squeeze the stuffed chicken leg into a perfect ball. I roast it that way and then artfully plate it. It looks great and it's easy to eat. I most often use a duxelle stuffing and I serve it with a supreme sauce. It's a bit "classical" I think, but there's nothing wrong with that is there? But as with all stuffed things, the room for experimentation is endless.

I have also seen boned, stuffed chicken legs done where the drumstick/thigh is reformed around the stuffing and sewn up tight. Sometimes the drumstick bone is left in and the stuffing is limited to the thigh portion. Maybe this is closer to what you're looking for.

[CathyL]

What spqr said. This is very easy to do since the leg/thigh bone structure is so simple - turn the piece of chicken skin side down so the skin stays intact, per Mme. Kamman's orders. Start at the top of the thigh and just work down the bone until you reach the bottom of the drumstick; leave the end of the bone in for looks, if you like, or cut around to free the meat completely.

I love this cookbook but have never tried the recipe in question. Please let us know what you think, Helena.

[helenas]

thanks, guys.

spqr, wow - do you have a picture to post?

as i got your replies after i went shopping, i decided to go with chicken confit for today. So i'm planing to try deboning and stuffing somewhere this week.

[Jinmyo]

Yes, what spqr said. But leaving the ankle bone, not forming a ball, and often sealing with a few skewers that are withdrawn before plating.

This is all very easy to do but hard to explain. I think spqr did a wonderful job.

[Toby]

There's also a clear, step-by-step description on p. 218 of Batali's Babbo Cookbook (for boning a duck leg).

[Suzanne F]

Maybe Jacques Pepin has a "how-to" in La Technique, or in the book that combines that one with La Methode. If so, you'll have the best demo in the world.

Julia has a description with one picture in The Way to Cook, on page 134.

And even though it doesn't contain the information you're asking for, I want to put in a plug for The New Cook by Mary Berry and Marlena Spieler (MS is a member here ) This is one of those books with tons of pictures that show you EXACTLY how things should look -- in color, too! I love that. And even someone who is not such a "new cook" can learn a lot from it.

[spqr]

spqr, wow - do you have a picture to post?

Not at the moment, no. But give me a couple of days. I haven't done this dish in ages, so what better time than now to do it again?

[spqr]

For Helena:

Stuffed Chicken Leg with Saffron Rice and Saute of Baby Spinach, Sauce Supreme.

[CathyL]

spqr, that is so beautiful.

[helenas]

Oh, i just bought a whole tray of chicken legs to practice the boning;

and now after seeing spqr's masterpiece, i'm both humbled and inspired.

What do you think about pine nuts/prune stuffing?

[project]

  More questions?

 

  I tried to debone chicken legs and thighs once, and all I got

  was a mess. At the end of my efforts, the meat was in strange

  little pieces.

 

  The biggest problem I had was with all the tendons. There are

  a LOT of tendons in the leg and thigh. Many of the pieces of

  meat were very well attached to some tendon, and each of those

  was well attached to a bone.

 

  Thought that maybe, for each tendon, supposed to cut it from

  the bone, hold it with a towel (so it won't slip), and use

  fingers to pull meat off the tendon, but didn't try.

 

  How are we to handle the tendons?

 

  Maybe for a deboned stuffed piece, we just leave in the

  tendons. But, what if we want to use the meat for something

  else, e.g., as is common in Chinese cooking?

 

  Also, in the leg and thigh, aren't there more than just the

  two large bones, that is, also some smaller ones? What do we

  do about those?

 

  Thanks.

[spqr]

I think the keys to successfully bone out a chicken leg are:

1> a very sharp knife

2> start at the drumstick end and work your way north, carefully scraping against the bone

3> begin work on the tendons and any remaining bits of gristle after the main bone structure has been removed. I cut away all the bony tendons and as many of the others as is practical, focusing on the ends where they attach to the bone - these are the tough bits and the rest of the tendon kinda melts away when cooked.

4>for stuffing them, first pound out the boned leg between two sheets of plastic wrap. The pounding aids in breaking down the tendons a bit too.

5> in order to get some chicken meat for Chinese cooking, I would use the breast instead of the leg because it's one big muscle and not a number of smaller muscles. As you've discovered, it's hard to prep a leg for this kind of yield, but if I had to I'd stick with the thigh rather than the drum because it's easier to cut away the meat and there are no tendons to worry about in the thigh.

[helenas]

yesterday i emerged from my first deboning/stuffing exercise only lightly band-aided

and with decent results. It took me an hour to prepare 6 legs. I tried to preserve the shape of the leg (following the method decribed in Babbo book).

Next time i'll try the ball method per spqr.

[Wilfrid]

I am not sure if I am doing the same thing as spqr, but I start at the top - the end nearest the body, and using the tip of my knife work around the bone. What I aim to do is actually to turn the whole thigh and leg inside out, so I end up with a completely inverted, but still intact, limb. I then push that back until it''s turned the right way again and stuff it. No cutting or sewing. Works for rabbit legs too, and I imagine for duck.

[Rhea_S]

I do mine the same as Wilfrid when I'm deboning a whole chicken. I scrape the meat, pull the bone towards the body of the chicken and invert the leg. This way, I find it easier to chop through the bone to leave the little knob at the end. Also, if it's a whole chicken, I only have to sew down the back of the chicken and not along the wings and legs.

[russ parsons]

i'm with wilfred, with the note that the only place i really use a knife very much is around the knee, where there are a lot of tendons that need cutting. for the rest of it, use your fingers or the dull side of the blade to scrape. but don't think about cutting (that'll tempt fate with breaking the flesh/skin).