Jump to content
  • Welcome to the eG Forums, a service of the eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters. The Society is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of the culinary arts. These advertising-free forums are provided free of charge through donations from Society members. Anyone may read the forums, but to post you must create a free account.

Breaking Down and Boning Poultry


Chris Amirault

Recommended Posts

I have been breaking down and boning a lot of chickens and ducks lately, making stock, preparing for confit, and so on, and I realize that I don't have a set routine. Sometimes I do the index finger under the ribs to release the breast meat; sometimes I use a knife. Sometimes I start by cutting out the backbone with shears; sometimes I start with removing the thigh and leg with the boning knife.

I haven't gotten out my Pepin Techniques to see how Jacques goes about it; impressive though it is, the video below of Hung Huynh "destroying" chickens on Top Chef isn't exactly step-by-step:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnMiyBLhonE

So I'm wondering how you do it. What first? What last? What's your preferred break down?

Chris Amirault

eG Ethics Signatory

Sir Luscious got gator belts and patty melts

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm into taking both leg/thighs off (chicken), then the wings. then through the cartilage separating the breast from the back. At that point, I have a whole breast, bone-in. I slit it through the membrane and pop out the keel bone, then cut down so I have two breast halves, bone-in. From there, depends on whether I want boneless or not - usually for the breast, I keep that part of the bone in.

This is a method I first saw in Merle Ellis' great Cutting Up in the Kitchen, a long out-of-print book, that can probably still be found for around $1.

Mitch Weinstein aka "weinoo"

Tasty Travails - My Blog

My eGullet FoodBog - A Tale of Two Boroughs

Was it you baby...or just a Brilliant Disguise?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I use the same method as weinoo. Of course a very sharp boning knife helps. I also twist the leg and wing joint to "break" the connection which usually avoids cutting through that ball joint.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I cut up a chicken mainly like weinoo, but with some tricks gleaned from others. One thing that I learned from Pepin is, when cutting a thigh/leg off the chicken, to cut until you expose the joint. Then with a sharp knife, just cut through the ligament that holds it together and (here's the trick) just grab the leg/thigh and pull it right off of the bird. That grabs all the meat cleanly off the chicken (along with some excess skin to trim). Its a cleaner and easier way to do it and it doesn't take all that much handstrength though it does take a little. The only part of cutting up a chicken that really involves any heavy knife work is splitting the breasts. If you're not doing that, a paring knife will suffice. Otherwise, I use whatever strong enough knife is handy (boning, chef's, even a heavy chinese cleaver).

nunc est bibendum...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never use a chef's knife to go through joints. If you hit the joint just right, a paring knife will go through.

The trick to finding the right spot -- at least until you've had a lot of practice -- is to squeeze the two sides of the joint (leg and thigh or the first two wing postions) in your non-knife hand, with the joint pointing up. With the index finger of your knife hand, feel for the ball-shaped ends of the bones. Make a cut in the space in between those, and you'll expose the joint and probably cut through some sinew. Then lay the meat down on your board and finish the cut from the opposite side. (As Mitch indicates, a smaller knife is preferable.)

Dave Scantland
Executive director
dscantland@eGstaff.org
eG Ethics signatory

Eat more chicken skin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I use a Henckels Poultry shears to split the breast,fingers to remove the meat, and shears to cut the wings offjust above the first joint, and the tips of the legs off...and to remove the back from therestof the bird,,, ...all other cutting with a boning knife...

Bud

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And you remove the wish bone how, exactly?

I stand the bird up on it's legs. I peel the neck flaps open and remove any fat sticking to the skin. Then, using the back of a boning knife, I repeatedly scrape up and down each side of the wishbone. In short order, the bone is revealed -- you can tell by the change in sound.

Then I use the point of the knife to go around the back of the bone and separate it from the breast meat. Finally, I reach in and grab the top of the wishbone with my thumb and index finger. (Mostly my index finger.)

The wishbone usually pops out in one piece.

This makes removing the breasts much much easier.

I can't watch the TK and Zimmern vids, because I'm on vacation and using "borrowed" wifi. But I'm sure that's basically my procedure.

Who cares how time advances? I am drinking ale today. -- Edgar Allan Poe

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just reach into the neck hole and pull it out with my fingers. It's easy to find by feel. Snap it if you have to: just ensure you take out both pieces.

For breaking down a chicken, I dislocate the legs from the main part of the carcass and simply slice through the gap between the bones. I tend not to divide the legs into thighs and drumsticks.

Edited by ChrisTaylor (log)

Chris Taylor

Host, eG Forums - ctaylor@egstaff.org

 

I've never met an animal I didn't enjoy with salt and pepper.

Melbourne
Harare, Victoria Falls and some places in between

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
  • 3 years later...

I realise that I break down a chicken quite differently from Thomas Keller's instructions in At Home. Recently I've been doing the whole process with kitchen shears which I find to be quite easy although a bit slower but the basic method is mostly the same with a knife.

 

First I hold the bird up by a leg and start cutting the skin between the thigh and breast. It pretty much comes apart to the point you can cut through the hip joint and remove the leg. I then cut the thigh and drumstick meat apart until I can see the joint and cut through that. Do the same for the other leg. I then cut all the tendons at the end of the drumstick so the meat can relax as it cooks and end up more tender.

 

The shears work well to remove the wings more or less the same way as the legs and to cut off the wing tips for the dog or for stock. I then cut between the back and breast on each side from the tail towards the neck. I never bother cutting out the wish bone.  Do you? Then the breast is flipped inside-up and cut lengthwise through the bone into two pieces. I guess you could do 4 if you really wanted smaller pieces.  The backs go to the dog or stock, too.

 

The only finicky part is the leg tendons and if it weren't for aesthetics I'd probably just whack off the end of the drumstick. So how do you cut up chicken?

It's almost never bad to feed someone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I use more knife than shears, but the cuts sound much the same. I separate the leg quarters from the body, slicing between the thigh and chest and pulling the leg outward, then cutting through the joint. Wings get much the same treatment. Sometimes I use shears instead of a knife to snip the shoulder joints. (I haven't decided which works better for me.) Then I cut down the ribs to separate breast from back. If I'm going to do a boneless breast dish then I remove the breast meat from the bone at this stage; otherwise I mash that piece flat to break the breast bone and slice longitudinally down the middle. (My grandmother cut laterally instead, thereby ensuring an intact wishbone.)

I've never messed with cutting the leg tendons. I'll bet your birds look better than mine. :-)

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am not finicky and just wack off the drumstick ends. I find I reach for the poultry shears to remove the backbone.

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

...I just let people know about something I made for supper that they might enjoy, too. That's all it is. (Nigel Slater)

"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

My 2004 eG Blog

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd forgotten about removing the backbone! Yes, I usually use shears for that.

Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've cut-up WAY too many chickens in my lifetime!

We used to raise up to 1,300 chickens, on pasture, each summer.

 

Anyway, the following video illustrates my preferred way of cutting up a chicken.....sans the wishbone nonsense at the beginning.

Note the way he pulls off the leg/thigh while capturing the "oyster."

The entire process shouldn't take more than 60 seconds, with practice.  :smile:

 

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...