How to Pick, Pluck, and Prepare Your Own Poultry
(Page 4 of 5)
If your bird is to be cooked whole, you can now advance
directly to Fig. 7 and its accompanying copy. If the
chicken is to be cut up, however, you may find it easier at
this point to cut off the legs (Fig. 6). Pull each one away
from the body and cut between the body and the
leg—right down to the joint—with a sharp knife.
As you then bend the drumstick and thigh further out from
the body the joint should separate, and you should be able
to cut the leg completely away. Wings may be removed in the
same manner, either now or after the bird has been gutted.
Rinse off each severed piece of meat and drop it into your
pan of cold water.
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To remove the chicken's entrails, slit the skin from the
end of the breastbone (Fig. 7) all the way to the vent. You
can insert your fingers into the opening behind the knife
blade as you make this cut if you like, to help prevent the
accidental puncturing of the bird's intestines. To simplify
the removal of the entrails, you may also want to make a
second incision across the chicken's belly, just
below the breastbone (this cut can be made right down to
the backbone) . . . and you .should also make sure that
your first cut is continued around the vent.
Now (Fig. 8) insert a hand into the opening you've just
made and work your fingers around the intestines to loosen
them from the cavity. This is also the time to locate the
tube leading up to the neck and cut if off as close as
possible to its upper end. (Yes, this is the messiest part
of the whole job, but it'll soon be over.)
Success! As soon as the "neck tube" is cut, all the bird's
innards will slide right out of the body cavity. Locate the
greenish gall sac in the liver and cut around it without
spilling its bitter contents on any of the meat you want to
save. Then (Fig. 9) cut off the gizzard, liver, and heart.
Cut into the gizzard until you reach its lining and remove
the organ's contents with the lining. (This will be a
little difficult to do and, usually, some of its contents
will get on the gizzard. Don't worry. It'll rinse off
easily.) Put the clean gizzard, liver, and heart in your
pan of cold water.
Now (Fig. 10) make an incision in the neck just above the
breastbone and locate the two tubes leading to the crop
(sometimes called the craw) and the lungs. Work your
fingers around the craw and carefully remove the crop (Fig.
11) without rupturing it. The lungs can be taken out as the
body of the bird is cut up. Or, if the body will be left
whole, you can reach into the lower opening that you've
made in the body and run your fingers under the lungs to
remove them.
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