Cutting up Chicken (The 9 Piece Cut-Up)

Yesterday's Post found by clicking HERE gave you a run-down of how we butchered all of our Cornish Cross meat chickens.  We have a process that we try to improve each time.  It is work, but fun, too.  The work is not done, though, when you butcher the birds. We let them age over-night on ice, going through the rigor mortis process. This will allow the chickens to be more tender. Now it is the next afternoon and I'll show you what comes next.

We have to cut them all up to put them in the freezer.  After church we'll eat lunch, have coffee and some nice chocolates and then get busy.  The first item on the agenda is to re-sharpen the knives.  They got a workout yesterday, but today is going to put them to the test.  You MUST have a sharp knife!  I sharpen them using a whetstone and honing oil and sharpening steel.  Now we're ready to go as we have 92 birds to cut up before Evening Services.  Tricia pulls them out of the tub and weighs each one individually and logs the weight. We'll show you what we use that for in tomorrow's post.

Tricia then gets a gallon Zip Loc Freezer bag and marks the weight and date on the outside with a Sharpie and then hands the bird to me.  What a nice looking bird we have here!  They are absolutely beautiful - better than the birds you see at the grocery store!  I position the bird breast up on the cutting board.  We like to cut all of our birds up rather than leaving any whole.  They store better in the freezer cut up, bagged and stacked flat, as we eat on them all year long.

A nice Cornish Cross Meat Bird

Before I start cutting, let me say that there is no 'right way' to cut up a chicken.  Do it however you want to. We've done it several different ways, but mainly use one of two methods and I'll show you one today.  Take your knife and make a slit through the skin between the drumstick and the body.  First on one side...

Slicing through the skin on one side

And then the next.  Don't cut into the meat - just the skin.

Slicing through the skin on the other side

Now take the legs and thighs and break it over at the backbone.  

Hyper-extending the carcass to break the backbone

Once it breaks, make a cut to give two separate pieces - a leg and thigh portion and a breast and wing portion.  Before going forward, let me say that we do cut some using another technique in which you pop the thigh joint out of place and cut along the backbone.  We'll do a few this way, but you must cut very carefully to make sure you include the little 'oyster' piece of meat in with your thigh portion.  If you're not extremely careful, with that method, you leave a lot of meat on the backbone. Perhaps we'll show that method another day.  Anyway, back to the task, now you have two pieces of chicken.

Cutting through the broken vertebrae to yield two pieces

Take the leg/thigh piece and cut right through the backbone.  You'll notice that my sharpening steel is ever-present in many of these pictures.  You'll need it to continue sharpening after cutting through bones.

Slicing right through the backbone

Now you have two beautiful leg quarters.  This would go nicely on the barbecue pit right now, but we're going to break it down a little further.

Two Leg Quarters

We'll now separate the drumstick from the thigh.  Flip the leg quarter over where you are looking at the "non-skin" side.  The Good Lord has essentially put a little line of fat where the thigh meets the drumstick to let you know exactly where you need to cut. Right below my knife, you can see the little line I'm talking about. Simply cut through the center of the line and on down and through the joint.  It is an easy cut when you cut on the 'perforated line.'

Cut along the dotted line (the thin line of fat)

See how nicely that worked?  Repeat for the other side.

Cutting the drumstick away from the thigh

Now we'll separate the wings from the carcass.  If you face the breast down and feel the wing, you can feel right where the 'shoulder joint' connects to the body.  You'll want to cut carefully around the joint so you don't cut into the breast meat.  The wings will come right off.

Removing the wings

Now we'll remove the neck and portion of the backbone/ribcage from the breast. Start at the back working toward the front of the bird.  There is another little line of fat that you can follow down and cut with your knife and then down all the way to the neck.

Cutting out the ribcage and neck portion

Use your fingers to remove the neck/ribs/backbone from the carcass once you've made the cut mentioned above.

Separating the neck and ribs

You'll be left with a big, nice, meaty breast.  We'll want to cut it in half.

A nice breast portion

Flip it over so that the 'meat-side' is facing down and cut through the cartilage right down the center of the breast.  It is not a difficult cut, but you might want to sharpen your knife again so you're not working so hard pushing a dull blade through it.

Beginning the cut through the cartilage

Continue cutting through it so that you have two distinct breast halves.

Finishing up the breast cut

And Voila!  Here we have our 9 piece cut up: 2 breasts, 2 wings, 2 drums, and 2 thighs.  Don't leave out maybe the most important piece - the neck/backbone/rib portion.  Whenever you thaw this out, put it in a stock pot on the stove top with some water, carrots, onions, celery, salt and pepper and a bay leaf and make a nice broth.  It is so healthy for you.  Instead of using water to cook rice, use the broth instead.  I can't begin to explain how much richer and flavorful this broth makes anything taste.

Similar to an artist's palette, the cutting board and table below contain the raw ingredients to many creative things that you can create in your kitchen - healthy, delicious, and something you can be proud to serve your family and friends.  For now, though, we're tired and intend on freezing all of the chicken.

A Nice Nine Piece Cut up

We get to work packaging each bird in a Zip Loc Freezer Bag and stack them in our freezer.  As we need chicken throughout the year, we'll pull out and thaw.  They are delicious and we know exactly how they were raised and butchered.  We know the conditions in which they lived and died.  We know exactly what's in them and feel confident in feeding them to our family.  What a blessing it is to be able to grow your own food!

Tomorrow we'll go through the numbers and show you financially how raising birds worked out.  We do this every year and compare the results.  It's always interesting. See ya tomorrow!