Chicken Butchery - Raw Bones?

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HumbleHomeCook

HumbleHomeCook

Embrace your knifesculinity!
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In the below video you can see the chef putting in some work with a pretty heavy duty knife. The whole video is good with some cool butchery techniques and different styles but I stopped at the point I'm talking about:



I like that the knife offers a little other utility beyond just bone splitting.

I know I could go bone cleaver here but wanted to see if folks had other recommendations. Prefer to stay on the lesser expensive side because it would be a bit of a specialty knife. I used to a little of this with a Wusthof chef's knife but the spine is pretty thin and it doll blunt the edge a fair bit.

Thoughts?

Maybe I should just fatten up the bevel on my #4 Wok Shop special and see how it fares... :)
 
Last edited:
HumbleHomeCook said:
I'm not sure I do either but would to hear your thoughts on why not? :)
Click to expand...
Well, let's see.

If I'm truly boning the chicken, I'm using a thinner knife in soft steel (cheap!), to scrape as I go and make my boneless pieces as large as possible, and I'm certainly not leaving that much breast meat attached to the wing drumstick.

If I'm cutting into pieces with bone, say for Marcella Hazan's wonderful Chicken Cacciatore, I am also not leaving that much breast meat attached to the wing. They cook at different rates, and I add the breasts much later than the rest. I am also not looking to have a do-it-all knife -- I'm cutting the bone junctions with that same soft steel cheap knife, and bisecting the breast with poultry shears, or a heavy cleaver if I am feeling sporty.

And, just for yuks, if I am boning the chicken but leaving it whole, I am slowly turning it inside out while making strategic cuts with poultry shears and scraping with a thin knife. The guy who taught me that can do it in less than 3 minutes, but it takes me 20-25. Why would you do that? Because you can then stuff it with a rice filling containing many wonderful things, and then deep fry it, and eat like an Emperor for one meal.
 
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Rangen said:
Well, let's see.

If I'm truly boning the chicken, I'm using a thinner knife in soft steel (cheap!), to scrape as I go and make my boneless pieces as large as possible, and I'm certainly not leaving that much breast meat attached to the wing drumstick.

If I'm cutting into pieces with bone, say for Marcella Hazan's wonderful Chicken Cacciatore, I am also not leaving that much breast meat attached to the wing. They cook at different rates, and I add the breasts much later than the rest. I am also not looking to have a do-it-all knife -- I'm cutting the bone junctions with that same soft steel cheap knife, and bisecting the breast with poultry shears, or a heavy cleaver if I am feeling sporty.

And, just for yuks, if I am boning the chicken but leaving it whole, I am slowly turning it inside out while making strategic cuts with poultry shears and scraping with a thin knife. The guy who taught me that can do it in less than 3 minutes, but it takes me 20-25. Why would you do that? Because you can then stuff it with a rice filling containing many wonderful things, and then deep fry it, and eat like an Emperor for one meal.
Click to expand...

I will say, I do butcher in different ways depending on what I'm doing. I use my @MSicardCutlery honesuki for 90+% of it no matter what I'm doing. Poultry shears come in for the bones.

Also, I feel ya on de-boning a whole chicken. I'm slow too. I did a large turkey once. Just once. :)
 
With what he’s doing in the video any 180 hone/gara or deba would be fine. Before I watched it, I thought it would be the Chinese 10-piece treatment that splits the thigh through the bone.
 
Dan- said:
With what he’s doing in the video any 180 hone/gara or deba would be fine. Before I watched it, I thought it would be the Chinese 10-piece treatment that splits the thigh through the bone.
Click to expand...

Might have to pull out my tough little Masakane honesuki and see how it fares.
 
HumbleHomeCook said:
I figured there would be a deba recommendation. Is your yo preference a sanitation thing?

What length do you like?
Click to expand...

Yo is an edge stability thing. Single bevels are chippy on poultry bones, but double beveled debas are mostly super burly beater monsters. I used to have a Misono dragon garasuki that was a complete monster and could totally go through rib cages without thinking twice. But most honesukis have a somewhat conservative heat treatment to yield a tougher steel anyway.

But for hacking through chicken carcass, my choice is the Tojiro DP F-815 240mm western deba. It might also be my zombie apocalypse knife. Maybe the 270 for that purpose. Anyway....



I also have a 165mm Kajiwara western deba. So stout. So tough. It will kill. A little tall for the task, as it has a traditional deba's profile, but it is hacky hacky, choppy choppy.



And frankly, my vintage K Sab can hack through chickens with the best of them.
 
btbyrd said:
Yo is an edge stability thing. Single bevels are chippy on poultry bones, but double beveled debas are mostly super burly beater monsters. I used to have a Misono dragon garasuki that was a complete monster and could totally go through rib cages without thinking twice. But most honesukis have a somewhat conservative heat treatment to yield a tougher steel anyway.

But for hacking through chicken carcass, my choice is the Tojiro DP F-815 240mm western deba. It might also be my zombie apocalypse knife. Maybe the 270 for that purpose. Anyway....



I also have a 165mm Kajiwara western deba. So stout. So tough. It will kill. A little tall for the task, as it has a traditional deba's profile, but it is hacky hacky, choppy choppy.



And frankly, my vintage K Sab can hack through chickens with the best of them.
Click to expand...



Excellent.
 
On the “you don’t need a single bevel front,” a HAP40 j-knife or similar could easily hack through and around bones. The whole anti-bone thing is pure CYA or related to lasers.
 
I kind of want to suggest a stringer style fattttt back end on a honesuki.

You (I) never really use the heelside for anything that requires thin geometry, more so ultra refined edge, so you could theoretically make it heavy and stable for banging away? 1.5 inches or so?

I don’t like the idea on a single bevel but a double bevel I wouldn’t mind. Just don’t quite have the ideal heft and height.
 
HumbleHomeCook said:
In the below video you can see the chef putting in some work with a pretty heavy duty knife. The whole video is good with some cool butchery techniques and different styles but I stopped at the point I'm talking about:



I like that the knife offers a little other utility beyond just bone splitting.

I know I could go bone cleaver here but wanted to see if folks had other recommendations. Prefer to stay on the lesser expensive side because it would be a bit of a specialty knife. I used to a little of this with a Wusthof chef's knife but the spine is pretty thin and it doll blunt the edge a fair bit.

Thoughts?

Maybe I should just fatten up the bevel on my #4 Wok Shop special and see how it fares... :)
Click to expand...


Jovidah said:
Getting cross-contamination cringe from that video... :confused:
Click to expand...
I was thinking same thing.
 
So is Russian roulette but that doesn't make it a good idea...
 
Chicken sashimi is pretty delicious. You just have to eat it at a trustworthy place.
 
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