Savvy savers know how to joint chicken

CHRISTIAN McCASHIN helps you with the cost-of-living crunch

Acquired with a little simple tuition, the ability to dissect a chicken is a great skill to have and an excellent money-saving one too.

Chicken breasts are the easiest part of the bird to use in cooking as they are boneless and easy to chop… and they come at a hefty price too. Free-range chicken breast in supermarkets costs around €18 per kg.

But a whole chicken is less than a third of the price.

The money-saving trick is to learn how to dissect your poultry.

With a whole bird, you have two, breasts, two wings, two legs – which include the gamey and tasty thighs – and of course the two delicious ‘oysters’ hidden by the backbone.

The thing is, the breast is probably the blandest part of the chicken to eat.

Galway food and wine writer Cathal McBride, of the website Aglassofredwine.com, advised: ‘If there’s one kitchen skill you learn this year please let it be how to joint a chicken. It’s €17.60 per kg for chicken breasts or €3.74 per kg for a whole chicken. There are tutorial videos on YouTube to help. I’d love to see cookery programmes return to demonstrating these basic skills.

As well as the meat from the chicken, you’re also left with a tasty carcass with which to make a rich stock to add to all sorts of other dishes.

Food critic and renowned gastronome Tom Doorley wholeheartedly backs Cathal’s sentiments and thinks a little simple tuition should reap great rewards.

‘It’s something that we do a lot. The other thing about it is you get the potential of a lovely stock. You will at least end up with the backbone and surrounding areas.

‘You can roast that for 20 minutes and put it with vegetables and water into the stock pot and you’ll get something lovely.’

The chicken stock can then be used in making soup or gravy and, as Tom adds: ‘It’s also essential for risottos.’

He also praised the ‘brown’ meat as gamier.

‘It’s got much more flavour and more fat so is more moist and takes just that bit more cooking. I would strongly recommend it.

‘This has my full endorsement.

You’re not only saving money but you’re eating the whole chicken which is much more sustainable. It’s definitely the way to go.

‘Also, in a lot of supermarkets it’s very hard to get free-range anything, so it does mean you can buy a free-range chicken very reasonably and then have all the free-range bits.’