Preparing whole chicken can save you lots of money

By JOAN OBRA

The cook with the proper know-how can cut up the chicken properly and use every part in dishes.

FRESNO, Calif. — Here’s a skill that serves penny-pinching cooks well: cutting up whole chickens instead of buying chicken parts.

At supermarket chain Vons.com this week, Foster Farms’ party wings were listed at $3.49 a pound, and boneless, skinless chicken breasts were $5.49 a pound. By contrast, the company’s 3.5-pound fresh, whole chicken was only $1.69 a pound.

Buying a whole chicken means fewer labor costs in processing the chicken parts.

Plus, a whole chicken has its bones, which have great flavor. But neither the savings nor the bones mean anything if a cook doesn’t know how to cut up a chicken — and use every part in different dishes.

Cutting class

That’s why Wendy Carroll, owner of Fresno, Calif., personal-chef service Seasoned to Taste, held a Chicken Basics & Beyond cooking class at Kitchen & Bath Plus in Fresno.

She invited Al Zall, vice president of Fresno poultry-and-meat processor Apple Valley Farms, to demonstrate how to cut and debone a chicken.

You’ll need a chef’s knife, kitchen shears or, preferably, the curved, thin blade of a boning knife.

“It’s your best type of knife to use for boning a chicken,” Zall says. “If you’re just going to cut up the chicken with the bones in, then you can use a chef’s knife.”

Whatever you use, be sure the knife is very sharp, he adds. Using a dull knife will mangle the chicken — and you’re more likely to cut yourself.

Start with a 41‚Ñ2-5 pound chicken, Zall says.

Butcher the wings: Place the chicken breast-down with the wings closest to you. First, cut off the wings at the joints that connect them to the body of the chicken.

At this point, you can keep the wings whole, or cut them in half at the joint to make drummettes.

You also can take the midjoint section of the wings and cut off the tips to make “party wings,” he says.

Next, butcher the legs: Separate the legs from the body by cutting around the joints that connect them. Then cut each leg at the joint between the drumsticks and thighs.

Hold each thigh skin-side down, exposing the joint that connected it to the body. Slice around each of the thigh bones, as close to the bone as possible. Pull off the skin, if desired, and cut off the cartilage at the edges of the thighs.

Separate the back and ribs: Partially cut the back apart from the body. Crack the backbone and pull off the back. You can save the back for soup stock (along with any other bones and skin).

Slice the carcass between the ribs, then slice a little along the keel bone that separates the breasts, he says. Use your hands to pull apart the ribs so the chicken breast lies flat. Run your fingers along each side of the keel bone, and pull it out. Cut off the rib bones on either side of the breasts. Pull out the wishbone.

Finally, butcher the breast and tenders: Cut off the chicken tenders (the flaps of meat that lie between the keel bone and the rib). Pull the skin off the chicken breast, slice off any membranes and fat, then cut the chicken breasts in half.

Afterward, you’ll have a neat platter of chicken parts, plus a bowl of bones, skin and other parts for stock, he says.

Soup’s on

Carroll didn’t make any chicken stock from scratch that night, but she showed different ways to use whole and butchered chicken. A posole con pollo (Mexican hominy soup with chicken) required simmering a whole chicken, then steeping it in hot water. After cooking, it was shredded and added to the soup.

Cooking the chicken in “residual heat” is a technique that ensures moist chicken, Carroll says.

Her Indian-style skewered chicken tikka tenderizes chicken in yogurt before cooking.

Though she prefers to use boneless chicken thighs, the yogurt marinade would work equally well with bone-in chicken breast, she says.

Just be sure to wipe off the excess marinade before grilling, so the chicken doesn’t burn.

Carroll also used chicken tenders in a stir-fry with mango. The trick in a stir-fry, she says, is to cook the chicken until it starts to turn opaque, then add ginger and other aromatics. (Adding the aromatics too early could cause them to burn.)

And then there was a dish that drew murmurs of pleasure from the class: Carroll braised chicken legs and thighs in white wine and chicken stock. That coq au vin blanc would also work with a bone-in chicken breast, she says.

In any case, “I would keep the skin on,” she says.