Day 42: How to Cut Up A Chicken

I am butchering a chicken today. The chicken will be cut in to four pieces ~ two boneless chicken breasts and two chicken legs. Chef does a demonstration on how to butcher the chicken for those of us that were not in class the day before. I butcher my chicken and then get my mise en place for my dishes ready. With the remaining carcasses from the chickens that have been butchered, we make chicken stock.

For my first dish, I am making a stuffed chicken supreme with tourney potatoes and ratatouille. For the stuffing I am using swiss chard, onion, and mushroom and half a chicken leg (meat only). I've sauteed the vegetables and grind them with the chicken meat in the robo coup. The farce (stuffing) is piped into the chicken breast. The chicken is seared in a pan skin side and then turn over and placed in the oven to finish cooking.

Chef wants us to practice our knife skills and the tourne technique, so we are making tourne potatoes to go with our chicken supreme. Tourne is a cut that has seven sides and is the shape of a football. The other vegetables for my dish are string beans and julienne carrots. The ends of the carrots and beans in my dish are cut on an angle.

Chef would like to see a ratatouille and a cream sauce as well. Ratatouille is a fairly easy dish to make and I dice up eggplant, green and red peppers, onions and tomatoes and cook them in a pot. The cream sauce is made by first sauteeing a mirepoix of diced onions and celery, season with salt and pepper and make sure that it doesn't brown. I deglaze the pan with white wine before adding chicken stock. I strain the mirepoix and let the liquid reduce to half in the pan before adding cream to it.

If you're interested in learning how to cut up a chicken check out this video. Cutting up your own chicken will save you money. You'll also be able to make your own chicken stock too.