stripping a chicken

top_drawer_2

hi,

I'm usually a lurker on this board as i'm only just starting out yet.

I bought 4 chicken legs this afternoon for £2!! and stripped them to use in making a curry. It took me an absolute age to strip them to the bone tho.... Surely there must be an easier way??

Thanks

Jen

Penelope_Penguin

top_drawer wrote: »

hi,

I'm usually a lurker on this board as i'm only just starting out yet.

I bought 4 chicken legs this afternoon for £2!! and stripped them to use in making a curry. It took me an absolute age to strip them to the bone tho.... Surely there must be an easier way??

Thanks

Jen

Welcome to Old Style :beer:

Were they raw or cooked It's easier if they're cooked

Penny. x

Zed42

Again, I'd second the cooking first .. then much easier to fall off the bone as it were ...

judy2357

I think the cheapest way is to buy a cooked chicken from tescos and strip it. I know you wont get it for £2 and am not sure of the price at the mo (prob £3/£4) but you could use it for 2 meals. Saves on gas/electricity and takes just a couple of minutes to strip.

miserly_mum

If you cook them first you get stock for soup or gravy AND meat for curry.

Much easier to strip once cooked and cooled

piglet6

Definitely cooking first is a must, but then I would say the most important thing is to get a really decent sharp knife. Apart from that, just grab the legs and go for it! Just hack away with your sharp knife and you will have all the meat off the bones in minutes...

Piglet

top_drawer_2

lol they were raw .... it was auful getting the skin off then all the meat .... but on the up side there was loads and it was much more tender than what I have found chicken breast to be....

Jen

top_drawer_2

how would I go about cooking it, as it would be with curry? sounds quite messy...

Jen

EssexHebridean

Easiest method I know of skinning a chicken leg before stripping the meat...

Grab the thigh part in one hand and the drumstick in the other - twist them backwards against the joint until the joint pops out - it goes with a distinct crack so you'll hear it. You should then be able to lay the leg down in a board and cut in with your sharp knife to separate the drumstick from the thigh. The skin off the thigh comes away quite easily. Slip your fingers in underneath - the skin is joined to the flesh with a sort of membvrane and you want to tear that away - so just work in underneath with your fingers until the skin slips off. For the skinning of the drumstick, get that sharp knife again and cut around just above the knuckle end. Then go from the other end with your fingers as you did for the thigh - once it's loosened at the top you can literally peel it back as though you were pulling off a sock - once it gets to the cut around the knuckle it should just come away.

To bone out either part of the leg - the key is to keep the knife close to the bones. To get the meat off to cut into pieces you can cut straight down parallel to the main bone - once you hit it then switch the knife angle through 90 degrees (ie - at right angles to the bone) and then run the knife along the bone gently cutting the flesh away as you go. Tunnel-boning a drumstick is slightly trickier - this is for when you want to stuff the drumstick afterwards. Leave the skin on for this one too as you'll need that to hold the whole thing together later. Hold the drumstick in one hand - knuckle downwards - insert the tip of your very sharp knife and start cutting downwards following around the bone but being careful not to split the flesh to the outside. Your aim is the peel back the meat from the bone - again something like removing a sock. Once you are almost to the end of the bone and all the meat is removed, use a cleaver to take off the bulk of the bone leaving just enough to leave the end closed.

If you think chickens are tricky - you want to try a rabbit - now they ARE fiddly!

top_drawer_2

Thanks!!

I'm definitely going to give it a go as it was so much cheaper than what I have bought in the past ... I just thought though that they probably werent free range so mmm ... i'll buy the same but free range next time, that might make free range more affordable for me.

Jen

aloiseb

I've just done the same to make our chicken curry - which I'm proud to say used up a pack of creamed coconut which had been in the cupboard for 2 years! I cut the chicken off the bone - rather messily - with kitchen scissors. There is some meat on the bones still, so I will boil them up for half an hour or so tomorrow to get the stock for soup.
My Gran always used to boil up her turkey carcasses at Christmas TWICE :eek: - the soup was a bit watery on December 27th I have to say...still, who needs rich food at that point?

I agree about making curry with already-cooked meat - it never tastes quite the same and it seems to disintegrate when you try to stir everything in. Probably works best to make the sauce separately and pour over - as with egg curry.