Unlike women of my mother’s generation, I’ve never killed a live chicken. However, I have cut up a lot of whole birds to hone my cooking skills, save money, and prepare extraordinary foods.

I was inspired by watching my mom who was inspired by supermarket whole chicken sales. She’d send my dad and me to buy six or so birds. She’d then go at them with her sharp knife — all of which would result in a pot of comforting chicken pho (pho ga), garlicky Maggi roasted chicken (ga ro ti), and a whole host of Vietnamese charcuterie that we’d put into banh mi and much more.

Naturally, when Rory and I started living together, I began buying on-sale whole chickens to experiment on cutting them up myself. I practiced in our tiny apartment in West Los Angeles, and our eating life became full of stocks, stews, liver pate, and roast chicken dinners. He was a poor grad student and I was a low-level university administrator but we at a diet rich in chicken-y foods. (This year marks our 30th wedding anniversary so I guess he didn’t mind my chicken obsessions.)

From cutting up whole chickens, I learned bird anatomy and became and expert carver of roasted chicken, duck, and turkey. I also became a better chicken shopper (When are bigger or smaller birds better?) and cook (What cut works better for which dish?).

Butchering chicken is a cooking lifeskill that unless you are a vegetarian, you ought to master. Unfortunately, most modern cooks do not know how to break down a chicken and make the most of it.

PTFS subscribers have expressed keen interest in learning how to break down a chicken. I’ve had it on my to-do list but something I saw last week kicked me into high gear: Whole Foods was selling boneless skinless chicken thighs for $10.99 a pound! Meanwhile, the WF whole chicken was $2.69 per pound.

A whole chicken is like manna from Heaven. A whole bird can seed many more delicious meals than a pound of deboned, skinless chicken. I bought several chickens and recruited Rory to help me make the four (4) videos in this dispatch:

• Chicken rinsing (yes or no and how?)

• How to cut up a whole chicken (+ what size and kind of bird to buy)

• Cutting and deboning chicken parts (for good flavor and cuts that you can only get at specialty markets)

• Chop chicken bones like a boss (for better broth and excellent pho, whack away!)

These videos will also help you with:

• food safety issues

• buying chicken intelligently

• getting better flavor

• specialty-style cuts

• broth/pho technique

• cooking confidence to deal with bones, boning knives, and cleavers

Feel free to share your knowledge and tips too!

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