Alton Brown fried chicken and assorted tools

[Peak_Oil]

He mentions several times in his video that part of his strategy is to dislocate joints and cut tendons in order to dismember fowl. Today was the second time I tried his method and I'll be dipped in apple butter if it didn't work just right. Cutting the ACL was kind of a pain, but that was the only one I had trouble with.

Otherwise, his methods were easy and sound. I didn't need my EMT shears to get through a joint if I dislocated it properly before the cut.

The chicken is now soaking in low-fat buttermilk, we'll see how it comes out tonight. With any luck, I'll be able to post pics.

I guess finesse does a better job than brute force from time to time.

 

[Peak_Oil]

DAMN that was some good fried chicken! If I had it to do over again, I would have used more spices and less flour, and paid more attention to keeping the skin in place while cooking.

His method of butchering a chicken worked extremely well and I heartily endorse it. For the wings, let the weight of the bird do the work for you. For the leg/thigh combo, same thing, but dislocate the hell out of that hip socket, and you're most of the way there.

I still have a couple pieces left but they're kinda fugly, so I won't post pics. But I still got half that buttermilk left, so next week.... more fried chicken!

I gotta find out how he does fish. I always wanted to know how to cook fish.

 

[Hard H2O]

I usually bake fish. I am going to have to try frying it sometime.

Fish are easy to fry.

Breading, and a milk/egg wash.

Some use a flour dredge then the wash then breading. I do the wash, bread, then let it sit a bit, then rebread. I use Gary Roach's breading.

Hot oil and do not over cook. Frying time depends on the thickness of the fillets. I am hoping to have some fresh sunfish on Sunday for dinner.

Good Luck.

 

[econnofoot]

dislocating is pretty common practice......whole chickens are the way to go too...then you can make stock

 

[Hard H2O]

I have the chicken soaking in buttermilk right now for a batch tomorrow.

 

[Peak_Oil]

I found out today that the Alton Brown disjoint - hang the bird by the limb - dismember method works GREAT on turkeys. I used some no-name brand long Asian triangular blade knife for the cutting, and it just did a fantastic job. Picked it up at a Ross Dress for Less for $10, and it hacked up that turkey with the greatest of ease.

I did find the EMT shears were a little easier with a turkey for cutting through the ACL and a couple other tendons, and for separating the drumettes from the junk wing parts. It was a lot harder to disjoint the wings than I thought it would be, and the EMT shears found the groove between the bone articulations very well. No bone chips in that turkey!

 

[TN_KNIFE]

Don't stop now. Next time you got a hankering for some chicken and want to play with your knives, try de-boning one. I think Jacques Pepin's demo is excellent.

My first one took me 15-20 minutes. I can now routinely do them in <10 minutes.

[video=youtube_share;kAekQ5fzfGM]http://youtu.be/kAekQ5fzfGM[/video]

 

[Peak_Oil]

Outstanding. I will give this a shot this week with a chicken.

Update: Just finished. I need a couple new knives. This was a PITA with a 4" fat-bellied Forschner. I need one of those skinny, flexible blades that can slip in between joints and do their thing. And a better sharpener, and probably a better butcher.

Thank you very much for that link, I watched it 3-4 times and was able to do it after that. I referred to it once on the lollipops and that was it.

I also caught that Asian guy debone a chicken in 18 seconds, but there's no way he did it with removing the sinew from the tenderloins the way homeboy did. I figure it took me 15-20 minutes this time, but I could get it down considerably with the right knife and a chicken that wasn't crushed during processing.

 

[Peak_Oil]

Another update:

I took the wife and kids to the mall this afternoon (high point of the month) and swung by Williams Sonoma to see if they had a deboning knife. None to be had! I was surprised. Do any of you have a suggestion for a knife for this job? Alton had a very thin blade, looked to be about 4-5" or so. The French chef had something that looked more like a... oh, I don't know, a steak knife? It was small, but didn't seem as flexible as Alton's. You know, W/S didn't seem very impressive to me after reading a while on this forum.

I was just thinking to myself what it would be like to debone a chicken and then fry it using the AB method more or less. The legs would be in the wrong hot spot on the pan for most stovetops, but mine happens to have a double ring so I think I could get it to work out with cast iron, lower temps, and longer time. One whole chicken fried as a unit, boneless.

Any of you guys tried this? I would be curious about your results.

Also, any recommendation on a good knife to use for deboning? I don't have the vocabulary to describe what I saw, so I'm just looking for a little direction.

 

[TN_KNIFE]

Another update:

I took the wife and kids to the mall this afternoon (high point of the month) and swung by Williams Sonoma to see if they had a deboning knife. None to be had! I was surprised. Do any of you have a suggestion for a knife for this job? Alton had a very thin blade, looked to be about 4-5" or so. The French chef had something that looked more like a... oh, I don't know, a steak knife? It was small, but didn't seem as flexible as Alton's. You know, W/S didn't seem very impressive to me after reading a while on this forum.

I was just thinking to myself what it would be like to debone a chicken and then fry it using the AB method more or less. The legs would be in the wrong hot spot on the pan for most stovetops, but mine happens to have a double ring so I think I could get it to work out with cast iron, lower temps, and longer time. One whole chicken fried as a unit, boneless.

Any of you guys tried this? I would be curious about your results.

Also, any recommendation on a good knife to use for deboning? I don't have the vocabulary to describe what I saw, so I'm just looking for a little direction.

Last time I fried a whole chicken, it was on the bone and I used my turkey fryer. Yum.

One trick I've learned through the years when it comes to smoking pigs, that might work for your chicken is to protect the faster cooking pieces of meat so they don't cook too quickly (with pigs, we'll protect the loins with sausage and/or pork shoulders). Maybe you can slide some of those bones under part of your chicken to sorta do something similar.

I like my Victorinox/Forschner boning knives. They come in several shapes and several different stiffness levels. And they're cheap. SMKW.com has the F41813 for $7 (it's not too far from the house, so I plan to grab at least one more the next time I'm up that way).

you might like their 40516
Forschner | Victorinox Boning Knife Flexible 40516

F41813

I think they call this their chicken and/or rabbit knife 40713

a more traditional shaped boning knife 40513

A paring or utility knife might also work for you. IMHO, they have sooo many makes n models that you're sure to find something that works for you.

 

[Peak_Oil]

I tried boning out and chicken-fried chicken frying a chicken the other day... what a disaster. I'm just going to part it out from now on and do it like he says. Not knocking your boning video, I'll do it again, just won't try to fry the whole thing in one piece in one pan.

 

[TN_KNIFE]

Well, that stinks.

I've never fried a whole, boneless bird. I do think I might just crank up my turkey fryer one last time this weekend for the big game. I've gotten my money's worth out that oil.