Chicken Little

One of the less-known skills but one of the most vital. This will take your culinary skill up a notch. The technique needed to break a whole chicken down is the same process you should use to carve it when roasted and works for any kind of bird. Why do I even break a whole chicken down? Well there are a few reasons. First, I do not have an oven in my tiny Parisian apartment. So I have no choice but to break a chicken down and cook it in its individual parts. But even if you do have an oven, this is a magnificent thing to learn and do. When I break a chicken down, I end up with: 2 breasts, 2 tenders, 2 thighs, 2 drums, 2 wings. But that is not all. You get a carcass to make your own stock and all the bits and bobs that you get to scrape off the chicken after making the stock. That is 10 pieces of chicken + the shredded bits, or 6-8 portions, and quite a lot of fresh chicken stock. That is a bang for your buck and much more exciting, in my opinion, than having a whole pack of just breasts or thighs. This will probably be the most intense post I have done in terms of length. But trust me. This is perhaps the easiest skill to master and it will be almost life changing. A bit dramatic maybe, but honestly.

What you need:

A whole chicken. As always, get one that is fresh. I believe in good produce that might be more expensive but forces you to eat meat sparingly and so get a free-range chicken if you can. Free-range chickens are treated incredibly well. They not only live a happy and healthy life but also taste better. But really any chicken works.

A sharp, large-ish knife. The sharp is crucial. A blunt knife is exponentially more dangerous than a sharp knife. With a blunt knife, you are forced to exert tons of pressure, almost saw through what you are cutting, run the risk of the knife slipping and a horrid injury. So here I have a stone as well which I use to hone my knife. Mine is a cheap knife that I bought at a generic store (~$10), but one that I keep sharp.

A chopping board, of course. I want you to see that you do not need the best tools. I use a plastic chopping board that is actually warped and bent. The trick is fold a tea towel and place it under your chopping board. This prevents your chopping board from sliding around when you are using it. I also have a paper towel that I use to dry my knife as I go. Again, a dry knife is less likely to slip and thus is safer for use.

Here you see the chicken is all trussed, tied together with butcher’s twine. If you are roasting your chicken, you ideally want to truss it up or have your butcher do so. When your chicken (although its applies too to other meats) is trussed, it stays compact, symmetrical, and thus cooks evenly in the oven. If you want to stuff your bird, you will tie it up after stuffing it. Since I am not roasting the chicken, I remove the twine.

Now we begin.

Step 1:

Grab the chicken by the end of one of the leg and lift. See how the drum and thigh almost separates from the body and exposes the hip?

Take your knife and gently slice the skin by the hip, exposing the flesh.

You want to slice the skin till you can see the joint where the thigh joins with the hip of the chicken.

Now put the chicken down. Holding the thigh, dislocate that joint as best as you can by pushing the thigh back.

I then take my knife and cut the thigh off right at the point where the joint has dislocated. If you did not manage to dislocate the joint, no worries. Just cut right at the hip joint. If you are cutting at the joint, your knife will meet little resistance. Now if this chicken were already roasted, the whole thigh would literally just slide off remarkably easy when you dislocate the joint.

So there you have it! Your thigh and drum. You can either leave it as is, or break it down further.

Turn the thigh-drum over. Use your finger to feel for where the connecting joint is.

Once you have found it, cut down.

Viola! Your thigh and drum. Do the same for the other side.

The same technique works for the wing! Lifts the wing up to expose the shoulder joint.

Lay the chicken down and slice through the joint. Some people use the wings to make a sauce/stock. I love eating the wing. It is up to you.

Now for the breast. A little more difficult but you got this. Use your finger to feel for the sternum. This is the bone between the two breasts; you have one too (sternum I mean).

Put your knife on one side of the sternum and slice down. Slice, not chop. Meaning run your blade from the top of the breast to the bottom in a smooth motion. This is where a sharp knife is especially important. If it is sharp, it will be like cutting through butter. If it is blunt, you will have to saw through the breast and mangle the meat. This is not to say you should be removing the breast in one cut but rather that it shouldn’t feel like a workout. Keep slicing through the breast and as close to the sternum as possible to avoid wasting any meat.

Once you have cut down, pull the breast outward to expose the ribs. Now gently slice the breast off the ribs.

Don’t stop here even after you got your breast!

Turn the breast over. You will see a little flap-like piece of meat. That is the tender (think chicken tender). Lift the tender and gently slice it off the breast.

Repeat for the other side and you will get two breasts and two tenders!

And you have successfully broken down your chicken! Of course there are the chicken oysters that chefs absolutely love but I wouldn’t worry about that for now.

So you are left with the carcass to make your stock. There are 2 different kinds of stock. One is a white chicken stock and one is a brown stock. I prefer the brown, but the white is a lot easier.

With a brown chicken stock, and because I do not have an oven, we start by browning the chicken carcass in a smoking hot pot with some oil. We want to crisper up the skin and brown the meat. I then toss in 2 onions roughly chopped in quarters (doesn’t really matter how, definitely does not need to look pretty) and about 5 cloves of garlic that I smash with a knife. Traditional stock will also call for about 2 carrots and 2 sticks of celery chopped roughly and a bouquet garni. A bouquet garni is an assortment of aromatiques (herbs) such as thyme, bay leaf, parsley, all wrapped in a leek leaf made into an envelop. I must admit that I usually forgo these last 3 things just to keep it simple. So yes, not a traditional chicken stock. But it still delivers on flavour.

Once your meat and vegetables are browned, fill the pot with water so that it covers the carcass. I add a pinch of salt, bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 30-40 minutes. The important thing with the stock is to skim the fat and impurities off the top of the stock as it is cooking. This ensures your stock will be nice and crystal clear. The flavours will also be cleaner as a result.

(In this picture you see the backbone of the chicken which yields delicious meat so be sure to shred it from the bones after making the stock.)

White stock is much easier. Just put all the same ingredients in the pan, bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 30 minutes.

Well hope this has been useful. The next few posts will cover how to use the different parts of your broken-down bird.