The Best Way To Carve A Whole Chicken | Epicurious 101

i'm frank proto i'm a professional chef and a culinary instructor and this is the best way to carve a chicken we're talking all the steps to separate the wings the thighs the drumsticks and the breasts in the most neat and efficient way possible this is chicken carving 101 apparently americans eat about eight billion chickens a year way too much chicken not to know how to carve it properly you got this beautiful chicken and you're gonna ruin it by tearing apart with your hands like a savage using a dull knife or cutting it way too soon even if you don't eat chicken you can use these techniques to carve pork beef lamb pretty much any other meat wiggle dance for us birdie [Music] before we cover our bird we have to cook it and when we cook this bird i like to trust it trussing is basically tying the bird with butcher's twine the first thing i did was tuck the wings under i took some butcher twine around wrapped it around the legs tied the legs really tight so they kind of stuck into the breast when we truss it the bird gets nice and compact and it roasts a lot more evenly and it also makes it look beautiful another thing we need to keep in mind is that after we cook the bird in the oven we need to let it rest when we let meat rest the juices will redistribute when you cover chicken when it's hot not only do you lose the juices the meat tends to shred it hasn't had time to keep that moisture to keep it nice and soft when you cut it this is about a three and a half to four pound chicken for this size bird i usually let it rest about 12 to 15 minutes for a bigger bird like a turkey i'd probably go about 20 to 30 minutes after the birds rested it's time to carve and in order to do that properly we need the right knives [Music] when i carve i use two knives the first knife i like to use is a very thin carving knife this knife is nice and flexible lets us get around corners and around bones these little scallops on the side stop the meat from tearing it gives us a nice smoother cut having a long thin carving knife lets us get a really nice long slice so we don't have to saw if we have to saw that's when our meat gets shredded when i initially take the bird apart i use a bony knife bony knife gets in through corners it can get into tight spots the boneyard lets us get into joints so we can separate the larger pieces of chicken before we slice them now that we've talked about our knives it's time to carve [Music] when we start carving the first thing we want to do is take off the butcher's twine string is not edible it's not good and if you serve it with the string you'll have a lot of angry guests and this is where i use the bony knife i'm going to use the boning knife for most of this process i'm actually going to get in here with my knife between the thigh and the breast and i'm going to try and stretch it out a little and cut to try and leave as much skin on the breast as possible i'm going to pull it away slightly cut away some of that connective tissue and then what i'm going to do is pop that joint out you see how that joint pops right out i'm gonna cut straight down here and take off my leg and thigh combo put it on my tray i'm gonna turn it around let's get this other thigh off pop my joint out again get in there with the knife next to the joint and now we got our other leg and thigh off next thing i want to do is take my wing off there's a joint right there if you can't see it what you could do is just wiggle it around usually where this bone and the kind of shoulder blade come together is where the joint is you can get it there and give it a little kind of snap and it'll come right out next thing i want to do is cut off the breasts i'm going to make a cut on either side of the breastbone we call it the keel bone because it looks like the keel of the ship i'm going to cut here pull the meat away as i run my knife down right i've got the wishbone there i don't want the wishbone pull the meat away and i have a beautiful breast same thing with the other side slice as you pull let me get that breast right off the carcass has a little bit of meat on it we can pick that meat off if we want but right on the bottom here where the thighs attached to the bird there's two little pieces of meat they're called the oysters they're delicious they kind of just scoop right out the chef's treat usually we don't serve them usually we eat them and that's what i'm going to do you pop them out super tender super delicious put the rest of this in some water and make yourself a stock once we have our large pieces off the bird then we can start carving them the rest of the way what i like to do is get my legs and thighs and cut them apart if you hit a bone just move your knife over slightly almost always towards the leg the wings i'm just going to leave the way they are i like them just that way and then with the breast you can see that the muscle fibers go front to back and what we want to do is cut across them so we get nice tender pieces so try and keep your skin intact use your carving knife nice long slices so we get nice smooth cuts right on your tray same thing here if you cut it with the muscle fibers usually it tastes a little stringy so you want to cut across now that we've carved the bird off of the carcass we can plate it up and serve it and i'm just kind of simple with this i'm not getting too fancy i'm going to put the thighs on the tray i'm going to have my legs kind of stand up a little my wings up front and then i'll take my two breast portions so i like to fan the breast out a little so you can see some of the sliced pieces of chicken if you have a piece on the end that's not super pretty i take that and i usually kind of tuck it under there and hide it out of the way and if you have any sort of gravy or anything you want to put on top you can put it right on top here and that's it that's how i plate my carb chicken now it's time to eat i hope you've learned how to properly carve and present your chicken so your bird looks as good as it tastes i got a nice salty piece it's awesome get in there

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 982,659

Keywords: best way to carve chicken, break down a chicken, carve chicken, carve chicken breast, carve whole chicken, carving chicken, chicken, chicken carve, chicken carving, chicken drumsticks, drumstick, epi, epicurious, epicurious 101, epicurious frank proto, frank proto, home cooking skills, how to carve a chicken, how to carve a roast chicken, how to carve a whole chicken, how to carve chicken, roast chicken, roast chicken pieces, roast chicken recipe

Id: owUitkVtubk

Length: 5min 48sec (348 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 01 2022