GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS PIECES

Buying a whole chicken and cutting it yourself gives you a lot more flexibility

Iused to think the only reason to buy a whole chicken was to actually cook it whole. Why buy one for a recipe calling for parts when the supermarket will cut up the bird for you? It’s not that I’ve ever minded breaking down a chicken, which takes about five minutes. I just figured that if it didn’t make any difference in the dish, why bother.

Then one day my mother set me straight. I was ripping the plastic off a package of chicken pieces, getting ready to dredge and fry. She was sitting at my kitchen table, shaking her head.

“I know you know how to cut up a whole chicken, so what’s with the pieces?” she asked. A whole bird, she reminded me, was cheaper per pound, and I’d get the added bonus of the back, neck and gizzards, which I could simmer into stock.

And had I procured a whole bird, we could be sauteing the liver in rosemary-infused olive oil right then and there for a mother-daughter snack.

Her logic was sound. It’s one thing to buy a package of thighs or drumsticks when you need a specific part, but you might as well cut up your own bird if you need a variety. Another advantage to cutting up your own chicken is that you can decide how many parts you like.

I prefer cutting the bird into eighths rather than tenths, keeping the breasts whole.

White meat cooks faster than dark, so leaving the breasts in large hunks helps ensure that everything finishes in the same amount of time.

You can use your cut-up chicken to make this ginger-and-lime-scented curry with coconut milk, sweet potatoes and chillies. Or substitute your favourite part, be it wings or legs or bone-in breasts. The bright, spicy and gently sweet flavours work well with any pieces of fowl in the pot.

But I do encourage you to cut up a whole bird if you haven’t tried your hand at it.

When the chicken in this recipe is nearly done braising, you can fry up the liver, then coat it in some of the luscious sauce. If your mother is anything like mine, she’d be proud.