These past couple of weeks I have been absorbed – I might as well use the term obsessed – with deboning a chicken, in preparation for the Eight Treasure Stuffed Chicken for my New Year’s Eve table next Thursday. My mother used to do it with the greatest of ease, but back then I was occupied with playing with the lotus seeds, rolling them around and breaking them in half.
Thanks to the Internet there are more than enough video instructions on how to debone a chicken – in six easy steps, like the pros do, in three minutes, etc. Jacques Pepin’s method that involves minimal cutting is the gold standard for deboning a chicken, so I watched his video over and over, my mind willing my hands to be as adept as his. When he says push in then flick the wishbone out with your thumb, I was practicing the movement on countless imaginary chickens. Good thing nobody saw me or they’d think I had some horrible muscular disease.
Lacking confidence in my ability to duplicate Pepin’s technique, I also watched videos on deboning the old-fashioned way – cutting and scraping the meat away from the bone, bit by bit, then wrenching out the ribcage and twisting off the leg bones... Sounds pretty barbaric, I know, and the warning in one video that vegans and animal rights folks should look away or switch off is a good idea.
But watching a video, even repeatedly, is one thing; confronting an actual chicken is another. So after days of watching videos I went out and bought a chicken to practice on. With a very sharp – the emphasis in all the videos is on “very sharp,†with good reason – paring knife, I set to work, with my dog Poopie (who, incidentally, is vegetarian) watching, keenly eyeing the bird and trying to figure out if it was something he would have a share of.
Honestly, it was not as difficult as I feared, but it certainly wasn’t easy either. The process began easily enough – the two breasts were separated in good time. After that it got a bit more complicated, as bones were showing up where I was not expecting them, and all these muscles and tendons were getting in the way as well (this is where the very sharp knife proved its worth, as these things were tough). I wrestled with the wings and the thighs, and decided to leave the drumsticks intact (looks better too). Unfortunately I poked a rather significant hole near the wing, so I’ll have to patch it up with skin from the neck and sew it up (my version of skin grafting). The process certainly took a lot longer than three minutes, and I’m far from performing like a pro, but at least I can proudly say there was no blood pool and the first aid kit I had on hand was not used.
All in all, I must say my chicken looked quite like the one in the video – a spineless clump of fowl, ready to take the eight treasures that I will fill it up with. I’m taking this chicken all the way – stuffed and cooked for Sunday dinner, and if all goes well it will make a proud reappearance on my New Year’s Eve table next week.