4 Tips for Cutting Up a Whole Chicken Carcass Easily
Learn how to cut up a whole chicken carcass cleanly: prep the bird, remove the legs, split thigh and drumstick, and cut the wings without tearing the meat.
When you buy a whole chicken carcass at a traditional market or supermarket, cutting it up can sometimes be tricky. If you're not used to it, a few tips make cutting a chicken carcass much easier. It may look simple, but you need to know how to cut a chicken carcass properly so the muscle fibers don't get damaged. Cutting chicken yourself at home has its own advantages. First, you can divide the meat into several portions: for example, some cut into whole pieces, some turned into chicken fillets, while the bones can go into a fresh, savory chicken stock. Here are tips for cutting a chicken carcass into pieces easily and cleanly:
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Prepare the Chicken You Plan to Cut
If you buy a chicken carcass at a traditional market or supermarket, take the chicken out of its packaging. Inspect it physically, from the muscle fibers to the fat and so on. Chicken meat in good condition has intact fibers, a yellowish color rather than a pale white, springy fat and the normal raw smell of fresh chicken. Meat that has gone bad smells rancid, and even with preservatives the odor can't be hidden. Before cutting, rinse the chicken in cold water, then pat it dry with paper towels.
Cut the Chicken Legs
The first chicken carcass cut is the leg. Chicken vendors usually remove the legs first before cutting the other parts. Cutting the legs is very easy: place the whole chicken on a cutting board with the breast facing up, then hold the carcass with your left hand. Pull the leg away from the body in the opposite direction to locate the joint connecting the leg to the backbone, then cut through the cartilage where the hip and the leg bone meet. When cutting the leg, cut through the cartilage, because this gives you a clean cut without slicing through any other bones. Repeat on the other leg.
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Separate the Thigh and the Drumstick
To cut a chicken carcass cleanly without mangling the meat with a wrong cut, you need to know the technique. Hold both ends of the chicken leg with your right hand and bend the thigh backward, in the opposite direction from the drumstick. Bending it this way helps you find the joint between the thigh and the drumstick. To cut it, find the fat line and slice along it. The fat line is a thin white line running between the thigh and the drumstick.
Cut the Chicken Wings
Besides knowing how to cut the legs, you need to know how to cut the wings. A proper cut gives you whole pieces of meat with the fibers still in good shape. People who don't know the right technique for cutting a chicken carcass end up shredding the fibers and breaking the meat into smaller bits. The right way to cut the wings is to find the joint between the shoulder and the wing. A carving knife makes it easier: cut through the cartilage at that joint. Repeat on the other wing.
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Those are our tips for cutting a chicken carcass easily and properly. We hope this information is useful.
