Rumrunner: Cutting up a chicken

The Naked Whiz

I'm about to cut up some chicken pieces to do a tandoori kinda' thing. You are supposed to cut the chicken up into random uniform pieces, which means cutting through bones, not joints. So, if I want to cut through chicken bones, do I:[p]a) use my 8" chef's knife to cut through the meat and then give the back of the knife a whack to cut through the bone, or[p]b) do a Samurai Tailor kinda' thing with a cleaver and just whack away with a mighty blow, or[p]c) use the cleaver like in a) to cut the meat and then hit the back of the cleaver, or[p]d) put the chicken back in the freezer, go to an Indian restaurant, and shut up..... [p]TNW

Rumrunner

The Naked Whiz, poultry scissors work good. Other than that, #B and #C will definitely work. The only two bones that will give you any trouble at all are the thigh bone and the leg bone. Remove the 'keel' bone from the breast and no trouble there, either.

thirdeye

I use a cleaver with some encouragement from a small rubber hammer...not as dramatic as the Samurai method but less splatter.

The Naked Whiz

thirdeye,
Yeah, I forgot to mention the spouse factor. Whenever I do ribs or brisket out of a cryovac, well, you know how blood seems to kinda spatter all over the place, and you know how you get just a little blood somewhere and all of a sudden the spouse is claiming that the walls are covered in blood, sorta' like the Simpson's Halloween special from about 10 years ago. LOL! Less splatter = less nagging.[p]TNW