Week 6 Gordon's training video: How to joint a chicken

Date Published:

20/10/2008

You can buy wings, legs, breasts and thighs of a chicken separately in the supermarket or from the butcher. But here Gordon shows you a way to save money by buying a whole chicken and breaking it down yourself

First, you want to get a nice, sizeable, sharp knife and a flat, sturdy chopping board. Don't worry if you can't cut the joints exactly and neatly. Once the chicken is cooked no one will know.

Loosen the legs away from the body by pulling them outwards. Carefully pierce the skin attaching the leg to the body. Placing one hand on top of the breast pull the drum back and pop out the bone from the joint. Slice through with your knife and the whole leg (i.e. drum and thigh) is now released.

Once the first leg has been removed, follow the process again on the remaining side with the other leg.

To further joint the leg, use your thumb to feel for the 'knuckle' between the drum and thigh, use your knife to slice through it. Repeat with the other leg and you'll now have two thighs and two drumsticks.

To neaten the drumsticks for better presentation, pick a point half way down the bone. Slice through the skin then scrape upwards to remove the tendons and clean the bones. Chop the end/knuckle joints off and reserve them for stock.

Next remove the wings. Pull the wing away from the body so the skin loosens and again use your thumb to feel for the joint. Slice through and release the wings.

Lastly you want to cut away the prime meat, the breasts.

You can see that in the centre of the chicken there is a main bone, called the keel or breast bone. Using it as a guide, run your knife blade along the inside from the higher end of the chicken to the lower, releasing the meat as you go. When you reach the wish bone you'll need to use some force to punch the knife through. This opens the centre of the carcass, meaning you can trim the breast meat off with very little waste.

Repeat this process on the other side.

If the chicken breasts look rather messy you can trim off any excess skin and fat.

You should now just be left with a carcass perfect for stock, and 8 different pieces of chicken.

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