Whole chickens - how many of you chop your own up instead of buying the various cuts?

[BeCool]

I love Aussie Masterchef & they have just done a chicken challenge where they start with a whole chicken & joint it/chop it into the various parts.

I've never done this to a raw chicken but it occurs to me that I should start. I've not been able to buy chicken breasts for years after seeing a programme about how they are processed. And you can buy a whole chicken for less than the cost of 2 breasts! The other pieces, if not going to be used straight away can be frozen and the carcass can be used for stock.

So it occurs to me that I should start doing this & it's a good skill to know. So how may MN'ers do it? Any tips?

i get the butcher to do it. he's much quicker and better than me. and it was him that suggested it was a cheaper way of buying chicken portions.

My dh does this - you get the hugest chicken breasts! And yup, it's a cheap way to do it.

We'd have chicken breasts in one dinner, then wings/thighs with chips the next night.

I can only do it when it's cooked, I am wibbly about chicken and can't eat it if I have to meddle with it too much [pathetic]
My parents can both do it in about ten seconds with a super sharp knife and scissors.
In anycase DH and subsequently DC only eat the breast so I buy free range ones from the butcher, it's £9 for three very large ones they serve 4 plus a bit for two little ones but a whole free range chicken from him costs about £13.

I do it. Or rather I get my DH to do it. It works out much cheaper that buying the joints separately and means I can buy a better quality chicken which we use in a variety of dishes (or freeze the parts we don't use that day). I'm not sure exactly how he does it but I know it involves a v big v sharp knife. It's quite quick and easy i think. There are loads of instruction videos on YouTube which he found helpful the first few times. The butcher idea is a better one if that's where you buy your chickens.

I need to learn how to sharpen a knife!

good idea re You Tube!

I've been known to because we've been known to rear our own birds

It's quicker and neater with poultry shears once you get the hang of it. eg.
www.amazon.co.uk/Stellar-Sabatier-Poultry-Shears/dp/B005L13U78/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1363348419&sr=8-2

I used to do this all the time when the family was small enough that one chicken was enough. Now the thought of buying four chickens to give everyone a breast each (and one for the freezer) is just too much effort!

DH used to, but now we tend to just roast a chicken and then freeze the wings, thighs and legs separately as cooked meat.

I have done it but usually roast it first which makes it easier to mess about with.
Poultry shears are great for cutting through gristle.

My dad does it for me .

He has a friend who knows a free-range chicken farmer. About once every 4-5 weeks (we eat a lot of chicken as pretty much no red meat) Dad gets me 4 chickens and joints them for me, makes stock with the rest of the carcass and puts it all in my freezer! So I get 8 big breasts, 8 legs, 8 wings, 8 pints of stock (I make a lot of soup!!) and assorted small bits of cooked meat to put in stock. Dad has those chicken shears that make it easier - I can't use them as my disability means my hands don't work very well.

It's my dads way of helping (I pay for the chickens!) and it's very helpful.

wow weeiemum your Dad sounds lovely!! What a fantastic thing for someone to do for you.

oh Tom I'm a city dweller - no bird rearing round here!

Nope, because I don't want chicken legs.

I went to a cookery class where we cut up a whole raw chicken into bits. It was educational but see above for why I'm not going to do it.

No we haven't learnt to cut up a raw bird, we don't buy breasts very often either because I want to butcher the chicken myself - we only started eating chicken 6 months ago. Mostly we roast a bird and use every bit of it and shove the carcass in the freezer for stock at a later date.

It's on my to do list to learn how to do this so will watch this thread - but first comes the mincer that arrived here yesterday, I'm going to learn how to make sausages first.

I'm excited for you snow - preservative free sausages. YUM!

I prefer the thigh meat.

I'm excited too - and slightly nervous. We will be able to eat sausages till they are coming out of our ears! Thigh meat - are we talking chicken? I like the legs and the thighs, moist with lots of flavour - breast is a bit dry and dull - we usually hide it in a curry. Kids always get first dibs on the legs. Being a parent sucks at dinner time. but I always snatch the oysters...they have yet to discover that little pleasure.

I can divide a chicken in half but that's about all!

Yes, I do it all the time. Cut off the drumsticks first, then the wings and the rest is easy. You get portions of meat and you could use the rest for stock or soup.

I learnt by finding a clip how to do it on You Tube, invaluable seeing it and the first time I needed the video in front of me and kept pausing but now it's second nature. And a skill I use all the time for lots of reasons. I also think the legs etc very good nutritionally as the dark meat has more iron or so I've believed

looseleaf do you use a knife or the specialist cutters?

No,I just roast the whole bird and then make various dishes with the leftovers eg chicken pie, risotto, casserole. We rarely have just a grilled chicken breast as a meal, mainly because I like to batch cook and cook ahead so I can just reheat when I get in from work.