Cooking For Engineers

[Guest]

Okay - Great site - Here I go - Wish me luck!! I'll let you know how it turns out - the cutting part, that is!!

M. Brook

[don@npdi.com]

Hello :

I ran across you site looking for tips on "Deboning" chicken wings. There are several Thai recipes, and one from Emerl on foodtv.com for Stuffed chicken wings that I really want to try.

I have downloaded two techniques - emerls and one other, and have tried to debone the wings. I can get the bones out, but It seems like I should wind up with a skin "sock" with meat in the middle. and my boned wings wind up looking like rags...

Help!

donw

[jimmyg]

DOES ANYBODY AT THIS SITE HAVE A CULINARY EDUCATION ?

[Wozencroft]

Re. Education.
Thats a pretty wide question mr.
Do you mean a formal education???

[Helpful Friend]

I have to say nice Mise en Place. Yuo need to rethink the tools that are required for this task. You need the Chef knife and a Filet Knife. You use the Chef knife for cutting through the bone only. The Filet knife is for makeing hte cuts on the chicken, it helps the presentation of the final product.

One area for improvement is the wing. You need to cut off the tip of the wing and not seperate the wing from the drumette. You do this since the tip has no savory meat for the consumer.

The other area is the breast. You demonstrated the way to leave the bone in the breats. The other method is to debone the breast. This is done using hte filet knife and using a skinning motion run the knife between the bone and the flesh pulling the flesh as you cut along the carcass.

[lmdelunas@yahoo.com]

My mother and grandmother would cut their chicken in to alot more pieces to be able to feed 9 children. Does anyone know how to cut the chicken to get me the wishbone and second wishbone pieces?
thanx, Lorene

[Dilbert]

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6986707-description.html

explains most of that

[tripst3r]

When I decided to tackle cutting up a raw chicken (after years of discarding recipes that called for one), I knew that this was the site that would have a method for a directed learner like me. Thanks so much for keeping this going.

[debbieh]

I was cutting up a roasting chicken the other day. I cut down the centre of the breastbone an along the bone was a long piece of green that looked like some kind of meat but it was green. Had no smell to it but disturbing to see this. It was right into the breastbone on the one side. Does anyone know what this could be? I threw it out as I had no idea what it could be. I have been cooking chickens like this for 35 years and never seen that before. Asked someone else that has been cooking for 70 years and showed her. She has never seen it either. Help ???

[Belinda]

It's called "green tenders," and is found pretty much exclusively in commercially-bred and raised hybrid broilers such as the "Jumbo Cornish Cross" meat birds. If you buy chicken at the grocery store, this is what you're getting. Pretty much the only way to get any other kind of bird is to raise them yourself, or know someone who does. The broilers are genetically developed for super-rapid growth and efficient feed conversion, and are typically harvested at 5-6 weeks of age. If allowed to get much older than that, the bird begins to put on more muscle mass (especially in the breast) than its bones or organs can support. The theory I'm most familiar with about green tenders is that it comes from a lack of blood supply and therefore oxygen to the "tenders" of the breast, due to the excessive mass and weight of the chick. In other words, that bird had already started to die from the inside out. I'm pretty sure green tenders are tissue that's gone necrotic. I've heard some say that it was safe to eat, but I'll not be the one to test THAT theory.

We are now raising our own backyard flock of heritage breed chickens for meat and eggs. We won't get the rapid growth (the youngest our birds will be harvested is 16 weeks) or the enormous breast, but then, our chooks will be able to live much more normal chicken lives, running, scratching, sunbathing, catching bugs, and roosting in trees. For our money, it's a pretty good trade-off.

Thanks for these posts, BTW. We'll be referring to them when we dress out our birds, since we rarely roast one whole or eat the skin.

[lilwoodenboy]

Michael, any more specific comments about cutting the breast halves into quarters? The simple step you show doesn't provide much info; the reason I'm asking is that for stewed dishes, like Indian recipes, if you do this badly you get a lot of little rib pieces in the meat - bad! I've done it both badly and well, but am not sure I know why. If you can help, thanks!

[debbieh]

Had my second case of green tenders in a 9 lb. chicken that I cooked tonight. Did not discover this however until after the chicken was fully cooked and was removing the remaining meat for soup . We had already ate the legs and thighs and then while removing the breast meat discovered the green portion of meat on one side of the breast bone. Not very appetizing at this point. Is it safe to eat or would be best thrown away? I had originally posted my first case of this back in July but was lucky enough that we found the green tenders instantly as I was deboning the uncooked bird .

[Dilbert]

as Belinda mentioned:

>>>I'm pretty sure green tenders are tissue that's gone necrotic.

see a search on: Deep Pectoral Myopathy

as applied to a living animal, necrotic means dead and rotting tissue.
I would not eat any of that chicken and - being it's a repeat performance - I'd sure be looking for another source of chicken.

appears to be more prevalent in large birds - especially bred for breast meat production.

I'd also pack it up, take it into the store manager and ask if they'd care for a bite . . .

[trailkeeper]

I found out one day in the kitchen that you can easilly remove the tendons in chicken breast by using a pair of basic needle nose pliars to grip the end of the tendon and a fork to hold the meat in position while you pull the tendon out.

Jon

[pp2010]

My husband was butchering a supermarket bought free-range chicken this evening to discover a large green mass in one of the breasts. Very disturbing indeed. We have taken photos to give to the supermarket but have dispatched to the bin to remove any possible contamination risk. we did a search and found a reference to similar on this site. thank goodness we didn't roast and eat it before we discovered it.