How to Cut Up a Whole Chicken

How to Cut Up a Whole Chicken Audra Lowe: For a lot of people out there cutting up a chicken can be a bit of a downing test, but Julie takes us into the family circle test to show you how to make it easy. Julie Auclair: I make a lot of chicken in my house. It’s my husband’s favorite, I don’t know about you but when I want to make breast or thighs or wings I go to the grocery store and get it all already cut up. I never cut up a whole chicken myself but today, we’re going to find out how easy that can be. We’re here in the family’s circle test kitchen with my friends’ Senior food editor of family’s circle magazine Julie Miltenberger. Thank you for having us back. Julie Miltenberger: It’s always great to see here. Julie Auclair: I got to admit that I'm kind of intimated by the whole chicken. Julie Miltenberger: It definitely is a little daunting at first and if you’re a little skirmish you know you just have to realize that this is how it starts. When you get the chicken in the store that’s how they cut up. It started as whole bird and someone else’s is doing the labor for you, and you might as well save the money of the labor. Julie Auclair: So, it is cheaper? Julie Miltenberger: It is cheaper by whole bird than to buy it already cut up parts. Julie Auclair: Okay! Let’s get started. Julie Miltenberger; Okay! But first we have the whole chicken here about five pounds or so and we just remove the--they usually put the napkin under the heart and stuffs inside. But it will remove fat and just patted dry with paper towel so it’s a little easier to handle. Julie Auclair: Okay! Julie Miltenberger: Okay! So were going to start first, by removing the legs and thighs. Julie Auclair: Okay! Julie Miltenberger: So what’s you’re do is you can see how there’s you know naturally separated from the breast, so you just going to start to cut down through the skin there. So you’re going to pull it apart slice with the skin, and also good start with a very sharp knife. Follow the curve with the shape of the breast. You going to find that your going to reveal the joints, so with your hands separate the joint of the thigh from the body of the breast. It’s going to be a little harder than cutting a knife through. How do you know it’s just a breast but there you go. Julie Auclair: Very fine. Julie Miltenberger: They you go a whole leg. Julie Auclair: Okay! Julie Miltenberger: And so then what we can do is we can separate this, the thigh and if you look at it you can separate the thigh from the leg here the drumstick if you will. Julie Auclair: Okay! Perfect! Julie Miltenberger: So once you flip it back over you’re going to see how there’s this natural fat line that occurs between both. Julie Auclair: Yes! Julie Miltenberger: And that get you right through that that next knuckle, okay. So I'm just going to pull out this. Julie Auclair: I’ll work on the other one. Julie Miltenberger: —resalable bag. Yup, you could just continue with the other thigh. Julie Auclair: Yeah! Julie Miltenberger: So you can get as much meat as you can off for that. Julie Auclair: Alright! We have thighs and drumsticks in there now what? Julie Miltenberger: Now, were going to separate the wings from the breasts. Julie Auclair: Okay! Julie Miltenberge: Okay! So it’s kind of the same technique, your going to pull it out and starts to slice down and you want to expose that joint and then crack it open. Julie Auclair: This is so much easier than I thought. Julie Miltenberger: See! You're fast! Julie Auclair: I was really afraid and I was afraid—and I'm not afraid of the whole chicken anymore. Julie Miltenberger: So now we just want to remove the breast of the chicken from the backbone, so you’re just going to hold it with the thickest part of the breast down and slice straight down separating the two sections. Julie Auclair: And you are going to run into some bone here. I'm going to give this a little muscle here. Julie Miltenberger: And you can also, instead of a sign motion. Julie Auclair: Yeah. Julie Miltenberger: Just go straight down. Julie Auclair: The chicken? But were going to try this way? Julie Miltenberger: Okay! Yeah! Just give it a little push there, there we go. Julie Auclair: And we are free. Julie Miltenberger: So we got the breast here. Julie Auclair: Can we describe this? Julie Miltenberger: You could use it to make stock if you want you know base for soups. Okay, so now we’re just going to separate the two breasts, so you just want to flip it over and cut straight down the center the breast bones. It’s going to take a little bit of strength so once again you can wrap it and use the power of your chef’s knife. There you go now you can slice to the skin very easily. Julie Auclair: Here we go. Julie Miltenberger: Here we go. Look at that we got two nice barge breasts’ there. Julie Auclair: And there big, yeah. Julie Miltenberger: That’s chicken breast so we got ten pieces of chicken from that one bird. Julie Auclair: It takes what, 10 minutes? Julie Miltenberger: Not even.