To butcher and prepare a chicken for dinner is a useful skill which you must learn. Just imagine you get into a circumstance where you are planning to have chicken in a lunch or dinner, but there are no butchers available nearby to perform the butchering processing. What will you do?
So, for the sake of such times, you need to know how to do butcher the chicken on your own. Some critical issues can emerge when you are not aware of the precise technique.
Also, butchering a chicken is not almost as terrible as several people will consider it to be. It is a vital process and can be performed humanely. The slaughtering completes within a couple of seconds. Butchering is a process that has been done for quite a long time. It is no evil, in fact, it’s part of life’s journey.
Step 1
Put the bird in a sack with a hole in it and the head firmly out of it. With the sharpest knife, cut behind where the tendon joins to the tongue and beak. You’ll feel a hard portion of cartilage. Do a deep, firm cut on each side of the neck.
Take out the head down and let the blood drain completely. Also, remember the bird will kick and jerk at this moment. Remain calm. It’s a normal part of the procedure. That’s why the bird was kept in a sack. But, don’t panic, the bird is senseless of anything. Keep the sack aside. When the blood drains out from the bird, and it’s still. You are ready to proceed further.
Step 2
Place the slaughtered chicken into the boiling water pot. It permits the water to get into the feathers making feather removal easier. Keep the chicken in the water for around a minute only. Then, set it onto a clean worktop.
Now, using a rope tie the feet of the bird together and hang it over the garbage can.
Remove the majority of the feathers as you can and pluck the rest later. Rinse it and using your knife, make an incision in the belly, close to the butt. The incision must break the skin.
Note: You don’t have to place the knife into its body and burst the intestines to avoid contaminating it.
Step 3
Cut the gland and go all through the bone until you reach the tail. There should not be yellow glandular tissue left on it. Straighten its legs and slice in between to remove its feet.
Slit the skin through the back of the neck going down. Remove the trachea and esophagus from its neck down to the point that you enter the body cavity. Then, pull everything off carefully. Leave everything hanging free of the body for now.
Step 4
Place the knife above the vent and slit open it till the breastbone. Do not cut the intestines. Carefully cut around the vent on both sides. Pull the vent out of the body, which will also remove the organs.
Wash the chicken under cold running water. You can use plastic freezer bags to pack the chicken and store it in the freezer.