The Breakdown with Chef Tyler
Cutting Up a Whole Chicken
What you’ll need:
One whole, preferably organic and/or free-range chicken, locally raised if possible. You can see (and taste) the difference. Local birds also have tighter skin; they’re not as flabby and the muscles are firmer, which makes them easier to clean and cut up.
A sharp narrow-bladed knife; its tapered tip will make for smoother cutting.
An ample work surface that can be disinfected with bleach water when you’re done.
Tyler’s play by play:
Getting started –
Dry the bird all over.
Cut out the wishbone first; it’s gonna be a little bit easier when you go to carve the breast out.
Next I’ll separate the wings, letting gravity do some of the work.
So I’ll hold the chicken up and cut into its armpit (for lack of better terminology), right through the joint and up and around to separate the wing, and do the same thing on the other side.
You can save the wings for stock or cook with the other pieces.
Removing the breasts –
Now I’ll cut the breast off – you could do the legs at this point but then what you end up with is top heavy and wobbly. So if you leave the leg and thigh on as you carve the breast, it’s a lot more stable.
I start by cutting as close to the keel bone as I can on either side. And with the wishbone gone I’m not fighting against any bones here. Then I follow with the tip of my knife as close to the bone as I can, separating the meat all the way down.
Another benefit of taking the breast off first is that if you do the leg and thigh first, a lot of times you inadvertently take some of the skin from the breast with them. This way, you can control how much of the skin you take.
The thigh is nice and fatty; it doesn’t need as much protection. But the breast, I like to be fully encased in skin.
Then I’ll flip the bird around and do the same thing to the other side. You don’t have to turn it but it feels more natural to me and I like having my hand on the part that I’m carving away.
With breast #2 gone, you can see what you’re working with on the leg and thigh.
Moving on to the legs and thighs –
By just following their natural veins of fat, when we go to separate the leg from the thigh, you can see that it’s an indicator for the joint, and you can see the ball of the joint that opens up. Once you’ve got it opened up, you can pop it right out.
Using the same principle, follow the vein of fat that should be pointed right toward the center and it’s a little indicator of where the joint is.
So now the only thing holding it together is skin and muscle.
And it’s important to get this oyster from the back; you can see it exposes that oyster when you pop it out.
Carve around that oyster and keep your blade nice and close to that cavity to get that meat out.
From here you want to make sure that you’ve got all of the cartilage of that joint separated.
Then you can get a nice clean cut or you can use a little bit of brute force and just pull it away and it’ll take all of the meat with it. Then do the same thing on the other side.
Expose the hip bone, pop it out, identify the oyster, carve around that, get all the cartilage.
Now you’ve got all the meat and all the skin. And a carcass for stock and a little wishbone to hang on your mantelpiece.
To take it one step further, like an 8-piece cut for fried chicken, we’d separate the thigh from the leg.
Using the same principle, following the line of fat, which should be pointed right toward the center and that’s an indicator of where the joint is.
You actually want to cut slightly inside, on the drum side of the leg and thigh, and that’ll cut right through the joint.
Ouita’s Roast Chicken
If you're like us, and your oven is an essential element of your home heating system, crank it up and make Chef Ouita's roast chicken for dinner tonight. Add the optional veggies to the pan and dinner is served!
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