Boning Whole Chickens

Appears in
Chinese Technique
Chinese Technique

By Ken Hom

Published 1981

  • About
Boning a chicken for the first time is inevitably quite an undertaking. It may seem to take forever, but keep at it. Even if you mangle it slightly, it will still look fine once it’s stuffed and cooked. With practice, boning becomes not too time-consuming. The Chinese do not cut a seam down the back the way others do, which eliminates sewing and makes it easier to form the chicken back to its original shape with stuffing.
  1. First, cut off the wing tips and second joints.

  2. With a paring knife, find the wishbone and remove it.

  3. With scissors or poultry shears, find the joint where the wing joins the collarbone and clip it apart.

  4. With a paring knife, find the keel bone, which runs down the middle of the breast. Start peeling the meat away from the side of the bone—but not the top ridge —cutting against the bone with the knife to loosen the meat.

  5. Keeping the knife against the bone and pulling the meat away with the other hand, work toward the tail as far as you can without stretching the skin, about halfway.

  6. Turn the chicken over. Starting from the neck, work down the back with a paring knife, keeping the blade against the bone to separate it from the meat. Gradually, the carcass will begin to emerge.

  7. Once the top half of the carcass is free down to the end of the breastbone, feel for the joint where the thigh is attached to the body. Cut it free with scissors and continue to work toward the tail with the paring knife.

  8. Once the entire carcass is exposed, cut it free at the tendons near the tail. Leave the tail attached.

  9. Make a slit down the inside of the drumstick to expose the bone. Scrape the meat away from the bone all the way around, and from the joint where it meets the thigh.

  10. Cut the tendons that attach the drumstick to the thigh, but do not sever the meat.

  11. Continue scraping away the meat to expose the thigh bone. Remove the bones and set them aside for the stockpot. Repeat the procedure for the other thigh and drumstick.

  12. Cut around the base of the wing drumette to free the meat.

  13. Then simply pull the bone away, turning the drumette inside out. This can be done with the fingers. Chop the wing bone near the body joint.

  14. A small stub remains. This heightens the illusion that the stuffed boned chicken still has bones.