There are many great recipes featuring poultry that have many an ambitious home cook raving: a hearty chicken soup, a clear broth, chicken fricassee, or homemade chicken wings. These dishes are in no way comparable to ready-made products from the supermarket, as they have a much more refined flavor. To make them, however, you need to know how to cut up a chicken properly. That’s actually easier than people often think.
Ways to Use Chicken in a Variety of Dishes
Almost every part of a chicken can be used, so you’ll have very little waste. The thighs and breasts contain the most meat: whether used in chicken soup or fricassee, or pan-fried, this meat tastes delicious. You can season and marinate the small wings and enjoy them as tasty chicken wings.
The skeleton of the poultry—the carcass left over after butchering—is by no means waste! The bones are perfect for making broth, so you’ll always have homemade chicken broth on hand. If you reduce the broth significantly, pour it into an ice cube tray, freeze it, and then thaw the cubes as needed to add a subtle flavor to your dishes.
How to Cut Up a Chicken Like a Pro
To ensure that cutting up a chicken doesn't become an exhausting task, it's important to use high-quality poultry shears from Messerbox. This task involves cutting through bones, which low-quality poultry shears—or even household scissors—can hardly handle. A sharp poultry knife is also helpful for cutting through skin and tendons.
- To cut up the chicken properly, place it on its back.
- Using your fingers, press one thigh down and use the poultry knife to make an incision between the thigh and the body. Repeat this step on both sides.
- After making a small cut, you can press the thigh down far enough to expose the joint. Use a knife or poultry shears to cut through at this point, and then set the two thighs aside.
- To remove the bone from the thigh, use a sharp knife to cut through all the tendons at the bottom of the bone, snap it off near the joint, and then pull it out. Next, turn the thigh over and pull the bone out from the other side as well.
- If you think the bone may have splintered during the procedure, check carefully to see if any splinters are hidden in the meat.
- If you run your finger along the highest point of the breast, you’ll feel a bone there. Make cuts along the entire length of this bone, both to the right and to the left. It helps to pull the breast meat down slightly to make it easier to cut along the bone. This makes it easy to remove the breast. Repeat the procedure on the other side, and you’ll have both breasts ready for preparation.
- Once the breasts and thighs have been removed, you're left with the carcass and the wings. You can easily cut off the wings with poultry shears and then boil the carcass.
