Deboning Poultry

This was something new for me. I'd seen it done a time or two and used in various ways but I thought it looked like too much work. But my skills have improved and Turducken is something that has tempted me about this technique, so I read a few links and watched a few videos on that topic to prepare myself for actually deboning a bird myself.

Deboning a turkey is a good static walk through of the concepts. They removed the backbone which is not something everyone does.

From Youtube:

• This video, he disassembles the bird more than I was planning, but he still shows the technique pretty well.

• Turducken video,  I like this one as it shows deboning the thighs and drumsticks while attached which was how I was thinking about doing this. You also get to see the technique as applied to three different birds. 

You need a medium sized sharp knife, 5-7 inches in length. A Boning knife is the specialty knife for this task and the flexible type rather than the stiff one would be my preference. But a utility or petty knife will do the job too. I used a 6 inch petty.   
As I was thinking about using some of the skin as a casing for a stuffed dish, I left the back bone intact to maximize the skin available. In hindsight, removing the backbone simplifies things overall and there's plenty of skin for what I had in mind. 

Start the cuts along the backbone. Cut in, when you contact the bone structure, keep the knife pressed against the bone and cut in shallow strokes against the bone, freeing the meat. Being right handed. I chose to work the right side first.

Soon, you'll encounter the hip joint. Cutting out the backbone eliminates the need to free this joint. Live and learn. Once you've cut around the joint as much as possible, you should be able to pop it free.

Continue following the bone carcass around the bird until you come to where the keel bone is attached to the skin.

Repeat the same steps on the other side of the bird. Now carefully pull and cut along the connection of the keel to the skin. You've deboned most of the bird. Trim off any meaty bits if you have a plan for them as I did. Otherwise, you can leave them on to flavor the stock.

Here, the core skeletal structure is removed and set in the bowl on the left. The legs and wings are still attached with their bones.

I removed the legs and wings.

The Breast intact and trimmed.

And I rolled the breast too, debating how I should cook it. It looks more bird-like rolled.

Then I loosened the skin off the thigh, which was easy to do. Then, I pulled the skin down the drumstick as far as I could. At which point I cut it off. Then proceed as in the videos to debone the legs.  Make a cut along the thigh meat to expose the bone. Then follow the bone, cutting to free the meat. Same for the drumstick. You can see the skin above the leg, which is opened up. Note that the drumstick skin forms a seamless tube.

My plan was to grind the leg meat along with the meat bits from the carcass. Which means removing the tendons in the lower legs. This proved to be a hassle, which I suppose is why its rarely done. You see boneless skinless thighs in stores because it's pretty easy. But you don't see boneless skinless drumsticks because it's hard.   Repeat for the other leg.  


The wings, I trimmed off to maximize skin coverage on the breast meat. I figured they would be too much hassle to debone as well so they went into the stock as is.

I plan to use the ground meat for a potsticker type dumpling and to do something like this with the leg skin and forcemeat.