Gutted chicken. How to butcher a homemade chicken

It is better to buy chilled chicken. So you will pay only for the weight of the carcass itself: unscrupulous manufacturers pump chickens with water before freezing to increase their mass. In addition, the freshness of chilled meat is easier to determine.

Express check of chilled chicken freshness:

Examine the chicken. If there are scratches or bruises on the carcass, the skin is damaged or has yellow-gray spots, it is better to refuse the purchase.
Notice the color. The age of chickens is determined by skin color. In young, it is pale pink, veins are clearly distinguished on it. Leather old hen thick with a yellowish tint.
Feel the carcass. Press your finger on the breast: fresh meat is elastic, it will quickly take its former shape. If a dent remains after pressing, this is a sign of damage to the product.
Smell the carcass. Fresh chicken smells like raw meat. Don't buy chicken that smells of drugs or other off-flavours.

Prepare everything you need:

Chicken carcass. It needs to be washed and dried with paper towels.
Cutting board.
Sharp knife. Big or small, your choice. The main thing is that it is well sharpened.
Bowls or bags for laying out meat.

Chicken meat is white and quite dietary (twice as much protein as fat). Carcass of neck, back, breast, wings, thighs and drumsticks. In stores, as a rule, chickens are sold already plucked, without heads and necks.

Wings and legs are used for frying or stewing. Cutlets and chops are made from the breast, and boiled is added to salads. The back, along with skin scraps, tail and other unformatted items, goes to the broth.

To butcher a chicken quickly and without problems, there is one golden rule.

Cut on the joints! Don't try to cut the bones.

First separate the ham. They can be used whole or cut into thighs and drumsticks. Then cut off the wings. The first phalanx of the wing is usually separated and used to make broth, since there is little meat there and this part burns when frying.

Then cut out the breast. Make an incision along the sternum, pressing the knife against the bone. Then, helping yourself with your fingers, carefully cut the meat from the frame. After that, separate the second half of the brisket from the back.

The remaining frame can be broken into several parts to make it easier to store and cook.

When you get used to it, this whole process will take you no more than 5-10 minutes.

How to cut chicken for roll and stuffing

Roll of whole chicken - gourmet dish for holiday table. It can be cooked in cling film(get something like chicken ham) or bake in the oven with mushrooms, vegetables, dried fruits and other fillings.

In any case, all bones must be removed from the carcass. Here's how it's done:

To prepare stuffed chicken, the bones are also often removed. Only in this case, an incision is not made along the sternum. The carcass is gradually turned inside out, while the thigh bones are carefully removed and the meat is separated from the frame.

How to barbecue chicken

To do chicken kebab, in principle, it is enough to cut the carcass into portioned pieces and .

The slaughter of chickens is the logical conclusion of the stages of rearing and fattening poultry. It is required to update the livestock, cull unpromising individuals or prepare carcasses for sale.

Either way, you'll have to go through the process plucking chickens, gutting and cutting carcasses into pieces. If you are slaughtering 3-4 chickens at a time, the plucking is done by hand and each bird will take 25-35 minutes to process.

If it is necessary to process a large number of chickens, it is rational and efficient to use the mechanical method of plucking using nozzles on a drill with adjustable rotation speed.

For the convenience of plucking and cutting chickens, prepare in advance:

enameled bucket for hot water;
sharp knife small length, intended for gutting carcasses;
nozzle on a gas cartridge with flame adjustment;
LPG bottle for existing temperature conditions operation;
tweezers, pliers or tongs to remove the "stubs" left after pulling the pen;
a bag for feathers and unused parts of the carcass;
oilcloth and thin latex gloves.

Manual way of plucking chickens

Start plucking the chicken it is necessary immediately after slaughter until the carcass has cooled down, and the feathers will be easily pulled out of the skin.

If several birds are slaughtered, then to facilitate the plucking process, the carcass should be immersed immediately before the procedure in a container of hot water.

The water temperature is about 50 C, and the immersion time is 30-40 seconds until the release of air bubbles from the feather cover stops.

Proper plucking of domestic chicken

The skin around the neck should be pulled back and tied so that it does not come off with the feathers.

We start with the wings and tail, pull out large feathers in the direction of their growth, so as not to damage the skin, which leads to the loss of the presentation of the carcass. Do not capture large bunches, it is enough to remove 3-4 large feathers at a time.
Next, go to the back of the carcass and sequentially clean the carcass from feathers and fluff from the tail. We pay special attention to the neck, where the skin is tender, and the feathers are held firmly and deeply.
The next step is to cleanse the chest and abdomen.
We pull out the remaining large stumps of feathers with tweezers or by scraping off the skin with a blunt knife.
The final stage of plucking and preparing the carcass for cutting is the firing of fine fluff.

Use a torch and a can of LPG, which are sold in tourist supply stores.

The carcass is pre-rubbed with bran or flour, which allows you to lift the feathers stuck to the skin of the chicken.

The distance to the carcass from the burner and the intensity of the flame are adjustable so as not to damage the skin. After the carcass is washed with water and fed for gutting and cutting.

Mechanical plucking of chickens

It is possible to mechanize the monotonous and time-consuming work of plucking a bird carcass using a conventional drill or a screwdriver and a special nozzle.

The cylinder with rubber "fingers" rotates at a given speed and the feather is captured, which is pulled out of the skin of the chicken without damaging it.
The drill is fixed on the surface of the table, workbench, and you just have to bring the carcass to the drum and control the plucking process.
Fine feathers and "stumps" are removed manually and through the final firing with a gas burner.

Removing goiter from a chicken

Instructions - how to cut homemade chicken into portions step by step

Classic variant chicken cuts are:

Separation from the carcass of the wings. We take the wing to the side and make a circular incision around the joint. We twist the joint and cut the connective tissue;
Branch of the thigh. We make a circular incision around the thigh, the joint will be deeper, repeat the steps, as is the case with the wings. The legs can be divided into two parts by making an incision along the joint;
We divide the remaining chicken carcass into two parts, making an incision along the ribs along the lower part of the sternum. We break the back and cut off the connective tissue with a knife;
We make another cut along the sternum and ridge, getting two portions of chicken for use in the first and second courses.

The fillet can be removed from the breast, and the bones of the sternum, tail and ridge can be used to cook a rich chicken broth.

VIDEO REVIEW

If, when gutting a chicken, you find abnormal development internal organs or damage to them, you should contact your veterinarian for clarification about the possibility of eating chicken or identifying a disease that may threaten the poultry population.

Raise chickens and constantly face their slaughter, plucking and other not very pleasant things? Do you know what quality chicken meat depends on how well you process the carcass? Not?! Then all about how to gut and how to cut a chicken correctly, read further in the article and watch thematic photos and videos.

What comes before cutting?

Chicken cutting implies the final division of the bird carcass into portioned pieces. Depending on the size of the pieces you need, two methods can be distinguished. According to the first method, it is necessary to cut it economically into smaller pieces, and in the common people it is called "waste-free". The second method is cutting the chicken into equal parts. Both methods will be discussed step by step in the diagram, photo and video later in the article.

And now let's talk about the stages that precede the chicken cutting, namely, slaughter, plucking and gutting the carcass. The methods of slaughter and plucking will be discussed in other articles. But we still remember the main nuance that will facilitate all further work. So, the most important thing is proper preparation birds for slaughter, namely a strict diet, at least half a day. Then the goiter and cloaca of the chicken will be emptied and there will be no extra fuss with them during gutting.

gutting

So, we have a killed and plucked chicken, which must be butchered, and for this it must first be gutted. All you need is the knowledge of what and how to do, a sharp knife and even hands. If you're not sure you can handle it, don't take it. Since in case of damage to the intestines or something else, you risk spoiling delicious chicken meat. Below is a short video on how to gut a chicken at home.

First you need to cut the anus. To do this, take a knife and cut it in a circle. The main thing is not to pierce anything superfluous.
Now we make a shallow incision from the excised anus to the keel of the bird. Again, the main thing is not to hurt the intestines. If you are afraid to hurt, then the skin can only be cut near the anus towards the keel, after which it will easily tear further with your hands.
Now we are preparing dishes for waste and internal organs.
Carefully listen to the intestines and anus. At the same time, we cut out the stomach and liver. With the liver, you also need to be very careful not to hurt the spleen. We remove it from the already cut liver.
Now you need to draw out the goiter. If you prepared the chicken for slaughter correctly, then the goiter will be empty and pulling it out will not be a problem. Otherwise, before gutting, we cut the skin on the neck and empty the bird's crop. You also need to cut the skin if the crop does not want to be pulled out or when using a slaughter method that does not involve cutting off the head.
Now you can cut out the genitals (ovaries in hens or testes in cockerels) and the heart.
The final stage of gutting will be a thorough washing of the carcass with cold water.

How to disassemble a bird?

If you don't know how to properly carve a chicken, then, as mentioned above, two methods are great for this. Both the first and the second method, chicken cutting will not pose any difficulties when it is carried out at home. As for which option to choose for you, we cannot advise anything here. Both methods are good and fast to implement, so give preference to yourself, and below are the cutting diagrams for both options.

Option one

This method will allow you to quickly and economically cut a whole chicken carcass into pieces. At the same time, the work is easy to carry out at home with an ordinary kitchen knife. Further detailed description process with thematic photos and videos.

First, separate the legs of the chicken. To do this, we put the carcass on the back, pull the leg and cut the skin between it and the body. As soon as you reach the joint, you need to stop, take the leg with one hand and turn the joint outward. Next, we separate it with a knife and completely cut off the leg. We do the same with the second leg.
Now we divide each leg into two parts: lower leg and thigh. We put the leg with the skin on the table and separate it along the flexion joint with a sharp pressure of the knife. We do the same with the second leg.
Cut off the wings at the shoulder joint.
Next, you need to cut the carcass into breast and back. To do this, we put the knife inside the carcass and pierce it. Now, slowly, towards ourselves, parallel to the spine, we divide the carcass in half.
Now we completely separate the back from the breast. Then additionally cut the back and breast in half.

Option two

This method will come in handy if you need to cut a whole chicken into pieces that are approximately even in terms of the amount of meat. It is also easy to implement at home with improvised means, and thematic photos and videos will help you with this.

First you need to prepare for cutting the legs. To do this, on the back of the chicken, below the scapular bones, we make incisions. Then on both sides along the ridge towards the tail we make 2 more cuts. This will help us to easily remove the meat from the bone, which is called "oyster".
Bones - "oysters" are located in small depressions along the ridge from the back. Carefully separate them with a knife. When they stick to the skin alone, cut off the legs.
The legs are cut out, as in the first version, but in addition, the “oyster” is captured.
Let's start cutting out the wings. To do this, turn the carcass upside down and make an incision between the spine and one of the shoulder blades. Now the shoulder blade is separated, and then everything is repeated with the second wing. Upon completion, the spine is completely separated.
At this stage, you need to separate the breast and wings from the skeleton. To do this, cut the carcass from the inside along the spine.
Now we cut off the wings from the breast so that we get 3 equal pieces - 2 wings and a piece of breast.

The final step in any cutting method is a thorough washing of the resulting parts. Such chicken disassembly options are basic. But no one forbade you to come up with your own version based on the above and your own needs.

Photo gallery

Video "Cutting the carcass into 8 parts"

Content:

Of course, the owners who breed chickens butcher freshly slaughtered fresh birds. However, most people have to deal with frozen eviscerated carcasses from the supermarket. And, before proceeding with their cutting, you need to defrost. But, to do this using various accelerated methods, such as dousing with boiling water or placing in hot oven not worth it, as it makes the meat not so tasty and tougher.

It is best to defrost slowly by placing the carcass on the shelf of the refrigerator. Thus, a one and a half kilogram chicken can be thawed in a day. You can also put the chicken under the stream cold water. At the same time, in order to defrost 500 grams of meat, it will take as much as 30 minutes.

If you still need to speed up the process, then you can resort to using a microwave according to the scheme: 2 minutes in the oven, 2 minutes break and again 2 minutes in the oven.

Gutted carcass cutting

Most often, the chicken is cut into 8 parts:

A pair of shins.
A pair of hips.
Pair of wings.
Two breast halves.

To cut the carcass, you can use special scissors (secateurs) or a large sharp knife.

Sequence of work

All manipulations should be performed in a certain sequence:

Place the carcass breast side up on a cutting board.
Using scissors, an incision is made from below, clearly in the middle of the breast.
Expand the carcass and cut out the spine from it. Since this structure contains a large number of bones and very little meat, then it is used to cook broth.
Pull one leg to the side and cut the skin along the body. Holding on to the thigh of the chicken with one hand, and with the other, on her carcass, turn her leg up, tearing the limb from the body. Thanks to this manipulation, the thigh will come out of the hip joint. Since the joint is torn, it is very easy to cut off the leg from the torso to the tail. The separation of the second ham is carried out in exactly the same way.
Next, separate the wings from the body. To this end, we feel the junction of the wing and the carcass, determining the place where the head of the bone enters the joint and cut along the joint.
The next step is to separate the breast from the back. The direction of the incision is determined by the white line, consisting of adipose tissue, along which the sternum is connected to the ribs through cartilage. Cut off the breast on the other side in the same way.
The bone, with cartilage on both sides, running the entire length of the center of the breast, should be carefully removed. To do this, cut the breast in its upper part, in the place where the two bones are located, exactly between them. The incision should be made to the bone, which has a darker color.
To take out the sternum along with the cartilage to which the ribs were attached, you should pry it with both thumbs, while, as it were, breaking the breast in half. Then, with a little effort, you need to push the bone up, pushing your fingers under it. After that, without removing the fingers, the bone with cartilage must be pushed out and squeezed out of the breast.
When the cartilage is almost completely removed from the meat, you should take hold of the bone and do not squeeze it out of the meat, but gently pull it. As a result, both bone and cartilage will be removed from the soft tissues.
We divide the breast in half. Ribs remain on the inside. They must be removed by carefully cutting with a sharp knife. The result will be chicken fillet. It can be left as it is, or it can be divided into parts.
The next step is to further separate the chicken legs into drumsticks and thighs. An incision is made over the joint.
Wings should also be given a neater and more appetizing appearance.

This completes the cutting of frozen gutted chicken from the supermarket. It turned out eight pieces, not counting the bones, cartilage and back, which can also be used, for example, to make chicken soup.

Each piece is thoroughly washed under running water and gently dried with a waffle towel.

Cutting up fresh gutted poultry

Above, the sequence of work with, in fact, a semi-finished product was considered. Now let's figure out what additional work will have to be done with fresh chicken:

The very first manipulation is plucking feathers from the carcass. At home, there is no special equipment with which this process can be mechanized. Therefore, you will have to work manually. With one hand, you need to take the chicken by the paws, and with the other, at this time, sharply pull out all the feathers in a row from the paws to the head.
When removing feathers, you need to ensure that their tips do not break off and do not remain in the skin. However, such cases almost always occur. And in order to get rid of these tips, you should pull them out with tweezers.
After cleaning from feathers, the carcass is burned to destroy the remnants of fluff. This is done using gas stove, turning the carcass over a strong fire or a burning sheet of paper folded into a tube. This manipulation should be carried out with open windows, since the smell of burnt fluff is simply disgusting. To completely remove even the smallest fluffs, before roasting, you need to rub the chicken carcass with flour.
The next step is gutting the bird. For this purpose, a small incision is made on the abdomen near the cloaca, through which all the insides are taken out. After removing the giblets, it should be washed from the inside with a stream of running cold water. The skin of the chicken should be cleaned with a soft brush.
The insides are divided into inedible and edible (heart, stomach, liver) parts. The stomach must immediately be cleaned, for which it is cut, the contents are discarded, the inner shell is removed.
If the chicken is not planned to be cooked immediately after cutting, then all edible offal is placed through the incision back inside the carcass.
The bird's head is cut off, their throat tube is removed.
The paws are cut off at the folds. Further butchering of the carcass is described in the previous section.

Chicken dishes are very popular not only among those who have decided to devote their lives to diets. From chicken, you can cook a lot of different yummy for both the everyday table and the festive one. The only thing that is somewhat embarrassing is not very experienced housewives- how to cut a chicken correctly so that the pieces in the dish are even, neat and look aesthetically pleasing.

For those who are completely unfamiliar with the process, there is one “tricky” advice: you can bake the whole “bird” and, after serving it to the table, ask the man to divide the finished dish into portions. Well, if the menu says stuffed chicken, chicken roll or stewed chicken pieces, then you have to tinker with it yourself. And to help everyone who doubts their abilities, a whole set of tips on how to butcher a chicken carcass.

Standard cutting scheme

There are several ways to butcher a whole chicken. Their total number is divided into methods for dividing the carcass into parts and methods for separating meat from bones.

Partitioning usually involves obtaining eight pieces of chicken as a result, and separation from the bones - the most whole and not spoiled by unnecessary cuts and gusts of a carcass, completely devoid of a frame.

Common to all modes of action:

thoroughly wash and gut the chicken;
cut the carcass correctly and evenly;
separate the wings (since it is very inconvenient to separate the bones from this part of the chicken, it is better to get rid of the wings even if stuffing or making a roll).

separate the legs
cut the legs into shin and femur parts;
separate the breast.

If the carcass needs to be freed from the bones, leaving the meat and skin intact (this is the way of carving a chicken for a roll), you can proceed open way: through an incision on the breast or back.

The traditional way: eight pieces of chicken

This cutting method is suitable for barbecue, roasting and stewing chicken.

Tools: sharp knife and kitchen scissors.

Even if you are not quite sure how to butcher the chicken, in this case everything will work out correctly, since the essence of the process is to separate the “protruding” parts (legs and wings) from the carcass and divide the remaining part into portions.

in half

Another popular way is cutting the chicken in two. How to butcher a chicken to cook tobacco chicken is known and able to do by most housewives. For them we will repeat, and we will teach the inexperienced.

Place the chicken traditionally - breast up and, holding the tail, make cuts on both sides of the spine. Remove the spine.
Make an incision in the breast bone (what is called the keel) and then open the carcass to the sides. The keel can be removed by simply pulling it out of the pulp.
The chicken can be left open, or it can be divided lengthwise into two even parts - depending on which recipe needs to be implemented.

Bone removal

This process of the hostess is called the most difficult during the cutting of poultry. The bone and meat hold together quite tightly, and the goal of the cook is to separate them so carefully as not to damage the skin and prepare an aesthetic dish as a result.

Removal of bones is the most time-consuming and requiring attention and care stage of cutting.

How to cut a chicken for a roll, how to preserve the integrity of the skin for stuffed poultry how to guarantee ready meal maximum presentation? Only very carefully getting rid of the frame.

There are two well-known methods: open and closed. The first involves one "through" incision, and the second (it is more complex) is based on eversion of the carcass, like a stocking.

open way

You need to start cutting along the back, since there is less meat in this part of the chicken, and the ribs are closer to the surface.

With a sharp knife blade, separate the meat from the skeleton, starting from the tail area.
When cutting meat from the ribs, you need to simultaneously deal with both the leg and the wing, breaking them off in the part of the connection with the skeleton.
Meat with skin on the leg must be removed using the stocking method.
As for the bones in the wings, removing them is so difficult and inconvenient that it is easier to simply remove the wing if the recipe does not require the presence of this part of the chicken in the finished dish.

Closed way

To understand how to cut a chicken from the bones using a closed method, it is enough to remember turning the uncomfortable heavy things of your wardrobe inside out. These are very similar processes. Only in the case of a chicken, you also need to cut the bones, and remove the tendons, and make sure that the "bird" does not want to tear.

The beginning of cutting is the place of gutting. It is necessary to carefully cut the tail on both sides (but not remove it), exposing the ischium.
Gradually cutting the meat in a circle, continue to “turn out” the chicken, exposing more and more of the skeleton.
At the junction of the legs with the skeleton, it is necessary to separate them from the main part of the carcass with a sharp and precise movement and continue turning the chicken further, you can do the legs later.
Separate the fillet from the keel, break off the wings along the joint line. Again, the wings can be removed due to the extreme difficulty of cutting from the bones.
It is necessary to clean the meat and skin from the legs in a circle, turning and chopping the bones at the joints.

Sanitary standards

The main thing in preparing a carcass is not only how to cut a chicken, that is, the process itself, but also the conditions in which it is produced.

Board for raw meat must be used exclusively for its intended purpose, otherwise troubles cannot be avoided in the form of possible infection other foods with bacteria.

The cutting knife must be clean and always sharp.

Gloves during butchering poultry are needed to protect against the same bacteria present in raw meat, and in the case of butchering finished poultry, they will protect hands from burns.

A common truth: the table and kitchen utensils must be washed in hot water before and after cutting.