Deboning a Chicken and Cooking in Parts

Place the chicken on the cutting board, breast side up.  Remove the thigh‐leg pieces.  Push the thigh away from the body by placing your thumb and fingers between the thigh and the body and then opening your hand.  Carefully cut the skin that should be stretched by this action.  Once the flesh is exposed put the knife aside.  Hold the carcass with one hand and break the thigh‐leg piece from thebody.  It should pop at the joint.  Now you can cut across and remove it from the body.  Do the same with the other side.

With the point of the knife and keeping the knife perpendicular to the body cut along the breast bone to remove the breasts.  The knife blade should be scraping on the bone.   Carefully peel away the meat from the rib cage.  Cut between the wing bone and the carcass leaving the wing attached to the breast.  Remove the first two joints from the wings.  Now you have two leg‐thigh pieces and two boneless breasts—four portions.  You may choose to separate the thigh from the leg to create four pieces.