I’m a little obsessed with demystifying and empowering in the kitchen. The brisket breakdown and chicken spatchcocking are getting a lot of love, so I thought I’d do another one. You’ve got a recipe that calls for chicken parts, but the store only has whole chickens? I can help! Lets break down that chicken! Bonus – bones for delicious stock come for free with every chicken! Boom!
Pic 1 – My glorious grilled chicken.
2 – Whole chicken, out of the bag, breast side up.
3-6 – Let’s do the chicken wings first! Bend the wing back a bit where it connects to the body. Make a shallow little cut along the skin there, so you can see. Bend it back a little more to pop out the joint that’s connecting it to the body. Carefully use your knife to cut around that joint and remove the first wing. Repeat with the other one. Use your kitchen shears to cut those weird little tips off the wings and set aside.
7-10 – Let’s do the leg next! Bend the drumstick away from the body a bit and make a shallow cut with your knife so you can see inside. Bend it a little more to pop out the joint. Use your knife to separate it from the body along the lovely thigh fat line.
11-14 – Now you wanna hold that gorgeous chicken leg with the drumstick facing up. That makes it more obvious where the drumstick meets the thigh. Make a shallow cut in the skin there so that you can see in. Start bending that back to pop out the joint and use your knife to separate them. Done!
15 – This is what the back of your chicken will look like now.
16-18 – Flip it back to the breast. It looks like a little love heart doesn’t it? So cute. Run your fingers down the center of it. You’ll feel the breast bone. You’re going to make shallow cuts right along both sides of that to start separating the breasts from the bone. It goes from almost vertical to curving pretty quickly. Just follow the bones with your knife til you have them removed.
19 – Done! Broken down chicken! Boom!
20 – Add the carcass and weird wing tips to your freezer bag of chicken bones for stock. Or make your first bag. So exciting! The bones make stock that’s so much better than the bought stuff.
Pic 1 – Grilled spatchcocked chicken.
2 – Chicken in bag.
3 – Chicken out of bag, breast side up.
Do you remember that Sandra Boynton book, But Not the Hippopotamus? The giraffe and squirrel dance in a whirl, but not the hippopotamus. The dog and the pig have fun doing the jig, but not the hippopotamus. The animals keep doing all kinds of stuff, but the hippo is never included. Finally at the end, she joins in the fun, but YES the hippopotamus! Everyone cheers. Then you turn to the last page. But not the armadillo. We were like, “Include yourself, little armadillo!” 
I’d eaten store-bought lavash before, but I’d never been to an Armenian restaurant, so I really had no idea what to expect with 
