Chicken Carcass Cut Names and How to Prepare Them Properly

Some chicken carcasses (dressed chickens) are stored whole, while others are cut into several pieces. Cutting a carcass into pieces makes the meat easier to store. Cut meat is also easier to cook: besides cooking through more easily, it becomes tender faster. Even so, you need to know how to prepare cut carcass meat correctly. Proper preparation keeps the chicken highly nutritious and preserves its texture. Chicken that is handled poorly, on the other hand, turns tough and loses its nutrients.

Chicken Carcass Cut Names

Before you learn how to prepare carcass cuts correctly, you should first know the names of the cuts. A whole carcass is divided into wing, supreme, leg, thigh, breast, drumstick and meat attached. Wing is the term vendors use for cutting off only the wings of the carcass. So from every carcass on the vendor's stand, only the wings are taken, and the whole wing is used. A cut of only the upper wing, with the lower wing removed, is called a winglet. The supreme cut is carcass meat that has been filleted, meaning the bones have been removed. You can use this term to ask a chicken vendor to fillet the meat you buy.

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Leg is a carcass cut into quarters. The upper leg is called the thigh, and many fast-food restaurants serve chicken dishes made from thigh meat. The lower leg is called the drumstick, a name that comes from its resemblance to a drum stick. The chest cut is called the breast. The breast has the most meat, so it suits people who prefer meat with few bones. Meat attached is a cut of carcass meat only, so the vendor will not include any bones in the meat you buy. There is one more carcass cut term: caracass. You can use this term to ask for only the chicken's tail (parson's nose), known locally as brutu. Brutu is usually made into sate (satay skewers) and sold widely at angkringan (Javanese street food stalls).

How to Prepare Carcass Meat

You need to know how to prepare carcass meat correctly, especially if it has been stored in the freezer first. Fresh chicken and frozen chicken from the freezer are prepared differently. Here is the right way to prepare frozen carcass meat from the freezer:

Thawing

First, you need to thaw it. You can thaw it in a microwave, which has proven to thaw chicken faster than other methods. Alternatively, you can place the chicken on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator overnight.

Marinating

You do not need to wash the chicken, but once it has thawed you can marinate it. Marinating means soaking the chicken in water mixed with various seasonings. Choose the seasonings to suit the dish you want to cook. The marinating process takes 15 minutes.

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When you want to buy only a specific part of the carcass, it is important to know the names of chicken carcass cuts. You should also know how to prepare chicken cuts properly so their flavor and nutrients stay intact.