In the late 1990’s my mother, Laura Aeberli, moved into a senior apartment building about 10 miles from my home. She didn’t drive so about once a week I’d either take her to the food store or pick up what she needed based on a shopping list that she gave me. One item that was always on the list was, “Whole chicken, cut up”.

This is just what it sounds like – a single chicken cut into pieces. They were usually right around three pounds in weight, most likely a frying chicken, and they were always available at my local supermarket. My mom used these parts in combination for soups, stocks, enchiladas and pot pies. She said the different parts made the best flavor.

Everything’s Better Now. Isn’t it?

Twenty five years later this once popular cut is almost never found in my supermarket. You can still get whole chickens, small and large but chicken parts are sold by cut; A package of legs, a package of boneless breasts, shrink-wrapped thighs or wing sections but never a package of a whole chicken, cut up.

So How Do We Get That Flavor Mom Talked About?

Don’t worry because we can always buy a whole chicken and cut it up ourselves! It’s not difficult and it may even save us a few dollars. More flavor and less money? What’s wrong with that?

Lets Do This!

Start with the Mis En Place, which is a small chicken, a french knife and a cutting board, then proceed as follows.

1. Remove the gizzard pack that may be tucked inside the breast cavity and then pat any excess moisture from the outside of the chicken. This will make it less likely to slip in your hands.
2. Lay the dry chicken on the cutting board with the breast side down.
3. Locate the backbone and using a large knife, cut along one side of the backbone. Keep near to the backbone so that the bones you are cutting through are tiny and easily cut.
4. Repeat the cut on the other side of the backbone and remove it entirely. This makes a wonderful stock!
5. Separate the chicken as if you are opening a book at it’s center, locate the breastbone and, making a cut between the two breast sections, split the chicken into two halves.
6. Focusing on one of the two halves, separate the wing and breast from the thigh and leg by cutting between the two sections on an angle at the thinnest part.
7. Locate the joint that connects the leg and thigh and slice through the cartilage to separate the two.
8. Locate the joint that separates the wing from the breast and slice through the cartilage that separates those to parts.
9. Optionally, locate and cut through the center of the breasts yielding two half breasts. This will make it so that the breast cuts will cook in about the same amount of time as the other pieces.
10. Repeat steps 6 through 10 on the second half of the chicken.

That’s it!

You now have 10 pieces of chicken plus the back section that can be used for all sorts of things. One of those things could be Sicilian Chicken Cacciatore – just look for the recipe that will soon be added to the Chef Hacker Kitchen website and Youtube page.

So what do you think?

Is this something that you can and will try? Or will you leave it to your friendly neighborhood butcher? Let us know in the “Leave A Reply” section below.