SMALL WINS+: BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Chicken essentials 101! How to break down a chicken and save yourself ££, last-minute roast chicken + the only way to cook a chicken breast at home
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Welcome to Small Wins+!
SW+ is a supercharged version of the newsletter for paid subscribers.
In addition to supporting the time and expense that goes into producing the (always free) fortnightly posts, paid subscribers receive a bumper bonus post each month containing a deep-dive into a particular area or category — so far: jam-making, kitchen organisation, pasta, potatoes and today’s 101, chicken! Coming up next: it’s Christmas! Consider these a handy reference guide that you can return to again and again.
Love,
Alexina
P.S. This 101 has come to you later than originally scheduled, sorry! I took on more work than I could handle this month, but it’s not something I plan on repeating. I’m currently in the process of mapping out all the Small Wins content for 2025, and I’m very excited for what’s to come!
Today we are talking about CHICKEN! The world’s favourite protein.
My grandparents were chicken farmers, just outside of Peterborough, so this feels like returning to my roots — roots that started to grow when my grandfather won a business competition that involved looking after some chickens.
Neither my grandfather nor my grandmother were ever particularly good at following others’ rules, and so I suppose it was inevitable that they would come to run their own business, on their own terms. But as anyone who runs their own business knows, you are never off and you will never work harder than when it’s all on you. There were good times and there were bad, but I don’t know of two more hard-working people. Also, needless to say: we ate a lot of chicken.
Chicken is a HUGE topic and when I was planning this post it quickly got out of hand. In the end, for the purpose of this month’s deep-dive, I decided to focus on the most essential preparations of chicken.
I think it’s fair to assume that home cooks are mostly roasting, baking, stir-frying or stewing chicken and so this 101 is geared towards recipes and tips that will enhance those methods — as well as some foundational butchery techniques. Perhaps I’ll do a deep-dive into all the classic chicken dishes in future (the ultimate coq au vin, fried chicken etc), but for now: the essentials.
Here’s what to expect today:
How to break down a chicken and how it saves you ££
Chicken stock: don’t overcomplicate it
The Chinese restaurant secret to tenderising meat
The only way to treat a chicken breast (at home)
A secret ingredient for marinating chicken
Why crispy pan-fried chicken thighs are overrated — and a better way
The foundational technique that will ensure the ultimate roast chicken
But for when you don’t have time: last-minute roast chicken with a super easy, herby dressing
Links to 10 of my favourite chicken recipes
There’s a playlist too, of course — and if you’d just like the high-level takeaways without all the detail, then head on down to the penultimate section of this post.
Right, let’s get into it!
HOW TO BREAK DOWN A CHICKEN + WHY IT SAVES YOU ££
Breaking down a chicken is an easy-to-acquire skill that can save you money and give you access to better quality meat. You never truly know what they have done to those pre-prepared, pre-packed chicken pieces in the supermarket (hello, it’s me, the cynic) — and even at my local butchers I know that the chicken breasts, thighs and drumsticks sold on the counter are produced by butchering the whole chickens that haven’t sold yet… which is to say that it’s automatically older chicken.
I’ve never been professionally taught how to butcher a chicken: my mum taught me — but what this tells you is that anyone can learn. You’ll see in the video below that my technique is imperfect — unlike the impressive chicken butchery skills demonstrated by Marcus Wareing on Saturday Kitchen just last week — and yet the result is still good! So it’s nothing to be intimidated by.
Plus, once you understand the structure of a chicken, you understand the structure of all birds and fowl. The only reason I was able to butcher a load of quails when I did my first professional kitchen stint on MasterChef (at The Game Bird, under Executive Chef Ben Tish) was because I knew how to break down a chicken!
A few general tips:
Take your time / don’t panic
Ideally, get yourself a filleting knife (this is the one that I have) — they’re inexpensive and have a sharp tip and flexible blade, both of which make this task much easier (you can use a standard chef’s knife, but it’ll be more cumbersome)
Let the knife glide (rather than using a hacking or sawing motion)
Here’s a video showing you how: