Prepping a game bird

Lie the bird on its back. Remove the head midway down the neck with a confident chop of a sharp cleaver.

Using your cleaver, tap the leg just above the foot so you break the bone but don’t cut all the way through the leg. Repeat on the other leg. Now twist and snap each foot off and you should be able to pull the tendon from each leg.

To gut the bird, pinch the skin at the bottom of the belly and make an incision in the fold of skin.

Use two fingers to pull the cavity apart so you can access the guts. Insert two fingers and your thumb into the cavity, get hold of the guts and pull them out. Make sure you’ve got the heart and all traces of the intestines. The lungs sit on either side of the backbone on the inside of the ribcage and feel spongy. You should be able to hook them out with two fingers. You’ll feel the bones at the back of the ribcage when you’ve successfully removed them.