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Chapter 31 Bonus Video Clip: Poultry Splitting, Quartering, and Eight-Cut

Chef Draz: In the past, most hotels, clubs, and large restaurants had butchers on staff to cut all the meat items served. Today, many establishments purchase meat and poultry pre-cut. Despite this, chefs need to have a basic knowledge of meat and poultry cuts and must be able to perform certain basic butchery skills. In this segment, you're going to learn how to fabricate poultry.

Chef's routinely cut whole raw chickens or other poultry into serving portions. This is known as fabrication. When working with poultry, portions may be halves, quarters, or "eight-cut," which is also known as disjointed.

When cutting bone-in poultry, you will use your chef's knife. The heavier blade is necessary for cutting thin bones and joints. Fabricating poultry begins with cutting the bird in half. Place the bird on a cutting board with the back toward you and the tail up. Place the tip of the knife slightly to the outside of the tail and slice downward. Cut through the thigh and then rib bones and then through the wing until the knife exits near the birds neck.

Spread the bird open and split it in half by cutting through the center of the breast. Create two equal-size portions by removing the backbone from the half to which it is still attached. This can be done by holding the bird by the neck with the backbone vertical or by placing the bird flat on the cutting board.

Once the bird is in halves, you can cut it into quarters. Find the natural separation between the breast and thigh. The separation runs diagonally to the line of the backbone. Cut through the skin and ribs to separate the half into two quarters. One with breast and wing and the other with leg and thigh. Repeat this process on the other half.

After quartering the bird, you can eight-cut or disjoint by following these steps. Locate the knee joint on a leg and thigh quarter. It can be found just below the streak of fat that is visible near the knee on the inside of the leg. Slice through the joint connecting the thigh and drumstick. If you're a little off, you may encounter some resistance. If you do, simply reposition the knife slightly to find the joint. Cutting through the joint should be very easy. If it is not, you are not cutting in the right spot. On the breast and wing quarter, separate the breast and wing by slicing through the joint at the base of the wing.

Remember that poultry is a potentially hazardous food product. Wrap and refrigerate cut poultry as soon as possible. After cutting poultry clean and sanitize knives, cutting board, and the work station to avoid cross-contamination.

Knowing how to halve, quarter and eight-cut poultry allows you to control the quality of your raw ingredients and to customize whole birds for different dishes.

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