Start with a whole chicken, kitchen shears, a sharp knife (notice that I don't have a proper boning knife, nor do I own a meat cleaver, but I get by with the slicing knife pictured here), and a clean cutting board—preferably plastic because it's easier to clean and you want to be very, very careful about cross-contamination when playing with raw chicken.











With the breast side of the chicken facing up, and the neck (or hole where the neck used to be!) facing away from you, cut the skin between the breast and the thigh on both sides of the chicken.  Then pick the chicken up and bend both legs toward one another until the leg bones pop out of their sockets.  (I know, it doesn't sound pleasant, but you do EAT the stuff, right?)  The picture to the right is of the chicken post-leg-bone-pop.  It is now possible to remove the leg/thigh from the body by cutting between the now-popped-out leg bone and the body of the chicken (i.e., between the joint)—without needing to cut through any bone.  Keep your knife or shears as close to the body as possible, leaving as much thigh meat on the thigh as you can.





With both legs/thighs removed, it's time to move on to the wings.  Extend the wing away from the body, as pictured, and cut top-down through the joint.  Here you will come to appreciate the easy removal of the leg/thigh post-leg-bone-pop because, with the wing, you cut through the joint rather than between a dislocated joint.  At any rate, there's a sweet spot that you'll find with some practice if you pay attention to cutting top-down.  (From the chicken's anatomical perspective, you're actually cutting bottom up, but the chicken's on its back on your cutting board, so we'll call it top-down.)










Now pictured right you have the removed legs/thighs, the removed wings and the remainder of the chicken's body.  Notice that I didn't take much care to retain intact the "drummette" meat where the wing attaches to the body.  If you were planning in saving these for buffalo-style chicken wings, you'd want to be more careful separating the wing from the body because the bare bone pictured on my cutting board is what's served as a mini-drumstick when frying these things up buffalo-style.  I'm going to make stock with it, so I don't care about the tiny bit of meat that's been left on the main body.











Now it's time to deal with the breasts.  Hold the carcass and angle it so you can see into the body cavity.  In a well-lit environment, you'll be able to see light glowing through the thin tissue and illuminating the ribs—specifically, where the ribs almost meet the vertebrae.  Take your kitchen shears and cut along this line between the ribs and the vertebrae to separate the breasts from the back.  Pictured right you'll see precisely this: the breasts separated from the back.  You're almost done.







You're now ready to set the chicken wings and back aside to make stock.  I recommend that you cut them into one-inch pieces, being sure to cut the tips off of the wings and cutting through other bones as well . . . and saving all of these pieces.  When it comes to making stock, you want the bone marrow to join the party and you need to release the bone marrow by cutting through the bones.  A cleaver comes in handy here, but I make due with my kitchen shears.  If you're not planning on making stock that day, freeze these parts for later use.  Tomorrow I'll write about making stock.

The final step in preparing your chicken for consumption is separating the breasts and, if you'd like, separating the legs from the thighs.  Lay the breasts skin-side down and, using a sharp knife, simply cut the breast in half.  (I use my old 10-inch inexpensive chefs knife for this task, NOT my all-star Shun 8-inch chefs knife.)  You'll be cutting through the breast bone, which will undoubtedly give you some resistance . . . so be prepared.  One trick is to make a notch in the breast bone at its thickest part, closest to the neck, and then picking the breast up and bending it backwards to break it in half.  Another trick is to simply remove the breast bone instead of cutting through it, and then separating the breasts by cutting through the remaining meat.  You'll figure it out.

With respect to separating the legs from the thighs, locate the knee joint by bending the leg back and forth a few times, then cut through that joint.  This can be a tough joint but, like the wing joint, with a little practice, you'll find the sweet spot which makes it an easy task.  There you have it!  Tomorrow, a "how to" on making chicken stock.