Bonus New Thing: Debone a Chicken
This was never on my life list but when my cousin sent me a link to a video of Jacques Pepin deboning a whole chicken and suggested we try it, I couldn't say no. Who am I to turn down a culinary challenge? Plus, the video is hilarious. I don't think it's supposed to be, but the whole thing is just completely absurd. The poor flat chicken, the French accent, the carcass...I mean, I know I have a strange sense of humor but I couldn't stop laughing. Even if you have no intention of deboning a chicken, you should probably just watch the video. It's just so...yeah. Go to Youtube and search for Pepin chicken. It's the first video that will come up. You won't be sorry. Or maybe you will, if you have a problem with chicken massacres. I don't know your life.
Anyway. We got our whole chickens and prepared to debone (or bone out, as Jacques says) them. In the video, Jacques suggests it shouldn't take you more than one minute to bone out the chicken.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Okay, you crazy little Frenchman.
We watched the video over and over and over. We sharpened our knives. We bleached the counters. Then we bleached them again because my cat (who I do not blog about) apparently has a bleach addiction and she wallowed on them. Aprons on, knives in hand, we went for it. Those poor, poor chickens.
It more or less went the way Jacques said it would. Except that it took me an hour. And except for the part where my chicken's carcass split in half and the ribs remained firmly attached to the meat. And the part where he casually whacks the drumstick with the back of the knife to break it- that took me more like 20 whacks. There was a lot of wrestling with the (poor, poor) chicken. But- when all was said and done- behold:
One chicken, sans bones. Except those little drumstick knobs at the bottom- you need those to stay on so the skin doesn't shrink up during cooking. Because reasons.
Here are our boneless chickens, all folded up and looking cute. In theory you would now stuff them, tie them up, and bake them, but we saved that for another day. Oh, psych. There's no photo of them folded up, it won't load for some reason. Probably because it's disgusting. So there you go. Boneless chicken- it's a good thing.
Anyway. We got our whole chickens and prepared to debone (or bone out, as Jacques says) them. In the video, Jacques suggests it shouldn't take you more than one minute to bone out the chicken.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Okay, you crazy little Frenchman.
We watched the video over and over and over. We sharpened our knives. We bleached the counters. Then we bleached them again because my cat (who I do not blog about) apparently has a bleach addiction and she wallowed on them. Aprons on, knives in hand, we went for it. Those poor, poor chickens.
It more or less went the way Jacques said it would. Except that it took me an hour. And except for the part where my chicken's carcass split in half and the ribs remained firmly attached to the meat. And the part where he casually whacks the drumstick with the back of the knife to break it- that took me more like 20 whacks. There was a lot of wrestling with the (poor, poor) chicken. But- when all was said and done- behold:
One chicken, sans bones. Except those little drumstick knobs at the bottom- you need those to stay on so the skin doesn't shrink up during cooking. Because reasons.
Here are our boneless chickens, all folded up and looking cute. In theory you would now stuff them, tie them up, and bake them, but we saved that for another day. Oh, psych. There's no photo of them folded up, it won't load for some reason. Probably because it's disgusting. So there you go. Boneless chicken- it's a good thing.
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