First, count your blessings. You don’t have to wring the chicken by the neck to kill it, pluck its feathers off, then singe it to remove the rest of the feathers like we did in our childhood. All you have to do is the following, or, of course, you can pay more and buy your chicken already cut up.
Cut the skin between thighs and body of chicken with a sharp knife. Grasping one leg of chicken in each hand, lift until thighs are free from the body. Remove the legs and thigh pieces, cut between hip joint and body close to the knees in back of the chicken. Follow the same procedure to remove the other leg. Next, separate the thigh and leg. Locate the knee joint by bending thigh and leg together. Cut through this joint to separate thigh and leg. Cut second leg. To remove the wings, pull the wing away from body. Start cutting on the inside of wing, just over the joint. Cut down through joint. Remove other wing. Now for the part that is hard to explain. Get someone to show you this once, then it will be obvious. Divide the body by placing bird on neck end and cutting along the breast end of the ribs at the neck. Separate the breast and back section, cutting through the joints. Bend back piece in half to break joint, cut through at this point with a knife. Cut breast in two just below the breastbone.
© 1997, 1998, 1999, 2003 Portia Isaacson Bass and Veta Leigh. All rights reserved.