Cutting up Chicken

Throughout this book there are many recipes that call for quartered chicken or chicken legs or sometimes chicken thighs and drumsticks. This can all be confusing, especially since cooks in restaurants cut their chicken differently than most butchers do.

When you buy a quartered chicken from the butcher or at the supermarket, you’re getting a whole chicken that’s been cut into 4 pieces, not including the head, feet, and neck. This leaves you with 2 whole legs, which include the thighs and drumsticks, and 2 breasts, with the ribs and wings attached. Since the ribs make it harder to brown the chicken breasts and have very little meat on them, I use a heavy knife or scissors to cut off the ribs below the meaty part of the breast. I save the ribs for broth. I cut the wings off where they join the breast, or at the first joint so that only a section of wing stays attached to the breast. The legs will come with a section of the back attached, and this makes them harder to eat. I bone out the piece of back and, again, save it for broth. But because of the way chickens are butchered, I prefer to buy whole chickens and cut them up myself.