Ms. Cowboy's Chicken Cutting 101

We've gotten so used to being able to eat what we want when we want that we've lost the ability to truly prepare meals from scratch.  Sure, modern foods have a convenience, but is it worth it?  Anyhow, I won't harp on that soap box today.  This is a blog about cutting up a chicken.  But, before I forget, thanks to Cowboy Cody for helping out with the photographs so I didn't get chicken slime all over my camera.

We sell pastured poultry through our Real Farm Foods and it's a very common thing for women of all ages (once in a while a guy, too) to ask how to cut up a chicken.  I think it's become a lost art that nearly all homemakers used to know back when things were geared a little differently.

So, let's start from the beginning.

This is a chicken.  A pastured, free range, grass and bug eating, sunshine enjoying, wing flapping, happy, cackling chicken.  Well, at least she used to be.  Now she's going to make me cackling happy.  To keep it simple, you're looking at the top of the bird, the breast side. 

If you're wanting to cut up all the parts of the chicken, start here.  Just want the thick, white breast meat, skip a few steps.  For a whole fryer, the first parts I cut off are the legs.  Start by slicing the skin and the meat around where the leg meets the thigh on the top part of the bird. 

Now, we call it cutting up a chicken, but let's get real.  There's a whole lot of grabbing and breaking going on.  Doesn't hurt a thing, but it's a whole lot easier than trying to slice through a joint with your best kitchen knife. 

So, grab the bird in one hand and the leg in the other after you've sliced all the way through to the joint, and bend the leg down away from the top of the bird.   

The joint will pop apart and your leg will be seperated. 

Continue cutting the meat apart from the thigh where you just broke the joint. 

You have a leg.  Now repeat on the other side.  Other side of the bird, that is.

 Now for the wings.  Cut around where the wing is attached to the side, similarly as you cut around the leg.

 Here's some more grabbing and breaking.  Grab the wing in one hand, the bird in the other and snap backwards.  The wing joint will pop apart, just as the leg joint did.

 Finish cutting any connecting skin away from the joint area.

And you have a wing.  Repeat.  For another wing.

 And now for everyone's favorite.  But, before you chicken cutting-up professionals look so closely at my pictures that you notice this bird still has her legs, let me explain. 
I'm as American as the girl next door.  I like the white meat.  So, when I cut up a chicken, I so many times will only cut off the white breast meat, using the remaining carcass for soup and stock.  The Cornish Cross variety of chicken that we grow has a lot of meat, and the breast meat alone is enough for a couple of meals for our family.  So, out of habit, I started cutting the breast of this girl before I remembered that most folks wanted to see pictures of cutting up the rest of the bird.
(Keep watching for a blog on our happy Cornish Cross chickens.)

 We start by cutting along one side of the breast bone from the neck to the bottom of the breast.  You should be able to slice along and pull the breast meat away from the breastbone all the way down. 

 Continue pulling, gently! while slicing with the knife, much as you would if you were skinning or trimming a piece of meat. 

 Don't you love the pinky finger?  So ladylike.

 Once all the meat is cut away from the breastbone, you will be able to cut along the underneath side, completely removing the breast meat away from the bird.

You should have something that resembles something like this.  Half a breast.  Or something like that.  Once again, repeat. 

Some of you may notice that I did nothing with the thighs.  Well, for me the thighs are as good as the wings.  Ain't much to 'em.  I think they're better off in the stock pot, anyway.

But, since this has about a gazillion photos, I'll do a seperate blog on frying up these marvelous pieces.

Happy cutting!