Chicken Help

[RaIn33]

I'm trying to do this for a school project so could anyone please help me out on this. Well, for the project I'm suppose to remove all the meat from a chicken completely (so that the bone is smooth and stuff), and at the same time keep every single bone intact. So could anybody tell me how I could remove every piece of meat from the bones? Also, the final product needs to be standing. Thank you very much. If anyone want to see what I'm looking for. I can post a picture for you. Thank you for your time.

[Jock]

Does the meat have to come off all in one piece also? It doesn't really matter actually because whether you take the meat off in pieces or not, this is something that has to be demonstrated. Trying to describe it in words so that someone could actually follow the instructions is very difficult, especially if you are a novice.

Jock

[Blade55440]

Put it on a centrifuge.

Ever heard of mechanically seperated chicken?

ok ok, just kidding. Um, you have to de-meat a chicken and keep it completely whole? wow, that sounds nigh impossible. I say get off as much as you can before-hand, boil the chicken, then tie/wire the joints back together that don't hold well afterward.

[even stephen]

I had an Chinese culinary instructor at J&W who did it with
just his hands. Not kidding. I start at the head end of the
chicken and, using a paring knife, just feather the meat away
from the bone, going around the carcass, just circling around
cut, cut, cut. When I get to the thighs and legs, pretty much the
same. start at the top and circle the joint, cutting around and around.
A real pain, but, think I remember having to do it in school as well.
Good luck. Sharp paring knife works the best for me.

[shel]

Originally Posted by RaIn33

I'm trying to do this for a school project so could anyone please help me out on this. Well, for the project I'm suppose to remove all the meat from a chicken completely (so that the bone is smooth and stuff), and at the same time keep every single bone intact. So could anybody tell me how I could remove every piece of meat from the bones? Also, the final product needs to be standing. Thank you very much. If anyone want to see what I'm looking for. I can post a picture for you. Thank you for your time.

Please post a picture.

I have seen numerous instances in which an entire chicken has been boned, leaving the meat intact. There's a photo enhanced description of the technique in the Time-Life Good Cooks series on poultry, although without a photo of what you're trying to accomplish it may not be exactly waht you're looking for.

That said, Google is your friend I just did a search on "boning whole chicken" and quite a few hits came up, including one that looks remarkably similar to the technique shown in the poultry book I have here in front of me.

Kind regards,

Shel

[mochefs]

You didn't mention a requirement of timeframe it has to be done in, that the meat needs to be edible, etc. ,etc.

So, since I don't have to limit myself to any of those criteria the best way I've ever seen it done is to follow this rigorous scientific procedure.

1) Place chicken outside
2) Surround chicken with something to keep critters (but not bugs) out
3) Wait a long time until decomposition and nature has had its way with it

Voila! Perfect chicken with no meat, and bones still connected and whole.

What? That's not what you meant?

[RaIn33]

Thank you for helping me on this. To answer all your questions.
Does the meat have to come off all in one piece also?
The meat does not have to come off all in one piece. The main idea is just to get the bones nice and smooth with nothing on it.

Well I have about till the end of this month to finish this project and at the same time write a paper for it. I'm not sure if the chicken will decompose in time for that. I will post some examples of how it's suppose to look like tomorrow, but thank you for all your help. Last night I tried to cut off as much as meat as possible and then use a knife to scrape off any remains but it took several hours, but it still ended up failing. I was getting a migraine heading trying to peal off the meat off the ribs. -_-. I heard from past students that if you boil the chicken for like 1/2 a day and then the meat would come off easier. But the time frame between the steamy chicken and then cooled down is sorta short and it'd be hard to peel everything off in that amount of time. But basically the meat can be treated in any way but the bones must stay whole. Thanks again.

[kuan]

Just like Even Stephen says. That's the way to do it.

Are you allowed to remove the wishbone and cut through the drummette bone? In "normal" situations, we first remove the wishbone, then cut through the drumette, still leaving the outside intact. Then we remove the meat with our hands until we get to the thigh. Then scrape scrape scrape. When you get to the end of the drumstick and the chicken is inside out, you can either chop the drumstick with the heel of a chef knife or cut off the skin. I prefer chopping it off. Makes the carcass look more whole. A paring knife works best.

PS: You can go through the trouble of removing the meat from the drumette, but normally this is also left there for sake of presentation.

[Mezzaluna]

Don't cook it! It'll fall apart. If you need to remove the meat you could try gently steaming the carcass just enough for the meat to soften up....

I second Stephen's and Kuan's idea. I'm a home cook but I have done this before- just for the heck of it, although I think I detached the wings first. I had toooooo much free time when I was single!!

[cwshields]

If your not interested in saving the meat maybe you could get some pointers from taxidermy.net

[Suzanne]

This is a really strange thing you have to do -- keep all the bones together but you don't care about the meat? That's kinda ***-backwards from what most of us are used to. May I ask what kind of class this is for?

[RaIn33]

This project is actually for my anatomy physiology class. We're suppose to be comparing the human bones to chicken bones and I can't see a clear picture of the chicken bone with all the excess meat in the way. I did actually use a paring knife to scrape away the meat, but the carcass was breaking apart. My whole chicken ended up in a flop and you would hardly know that was a chicken.
Here are some pictures as to what the final product should look like. We can spray paint or paint the bones so that it could hide some mistakes. But uncleaned bones are sorta hard to hide.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...3/DSC00057.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...3/DSC00058.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...3/DSC00059.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...3/DSC00060.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...3/DSC00061.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...3/DSC00062.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...3/DSC00063.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...3/DSC00064.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...3/DSC00065.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...3/DSC00066.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...3/DSC00067.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...3/DSC00068.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...3/DSC00069.jpg

[Jock]

Is that even a real chicken? It looks like plastic in the photos. I don't know that it's possible to get the carcas to look like that with just a knife. It's the tendons that hold the bones together and I can't see any in these photos which makes me wonder.... Is your professor yanking your collective chain?

Jock

[mochefs]

I wasn't kidding about the decomposition thing. There are special chemicals and whatnot that the professionals use to expedite the process down into a few days I think....but I'm guessing Lye is probably an ingredient in some of them. Think light acid and you'll have a rough idea. But this isn't really the best type of forum to be checking in for this type of information.

You should be able to find sites with information on this if you google for it. It's not taxidermy per se since that is focused on getting *out* the inside, not getting *off* the outside

There are specialized facilities that focus on providing whole skeletons/skulls/etc to museums (some of the most foul smelling places you'd ever want to be). There was an episode not too long ago with one of those facilities on the TV program "Dirty Jobs". Perhaps you can find a reference to them at the Discovery Channel website and get some terminology that will help you in your search.

I just want to make sure you understand that the skeleton is *not* going to be able to 'stand', 'sit', etc. without mechanical support. Museums typically drill small holes with Dremel's and wire up the joints with stiff wire. I suppose with something as light as a chicken skeleton you might be able to superglue the joints as long as long you had a little filler in there. But knowing all the right angles beforehand would be a nightmare. Wire is much more pliable.

[Mezzaluna]

So that was your assignment!

My applied human anatomy class in college didn't use chickens; we used human cadavers which had been dissected by the students in the gross anatomy class. At least you don't have to worry about scrubbing off the smell of embalming fluid! That class, besides being exhausting, gave me a strong sense of the genius of the design of the human body.