My version of de-boning a duck.

You know how in the movie Julie&Julia, she's ALWAYS complaining about having to "de-bone a duck" because it freaks her out? Well, that's how I feel about cutting a whole chicken into it's eight segments...2 breasts, 2 legs, 2 thighs and 2 wings. One of the things that I never learned (although my father was a meat butcher at our family grocery store for many years)...was how to cut a whole chicken. I've avoided it, to say the least.

Now, I have cut a whole chicken after cooking it and served it that way.  But, cutting it when it's raw?  No...that's gross. You know what it is... (and maybe you want to stop reading if you're squeamish about raw chicken)...it's the crunching of the knife through the chicken bones.  That's what it is for me.  It's pulling out the slimy liver from inside the body cavity and the crunching of the bones when you have to cut through it.  Seeing the bone marrow is pretty nasty too.

But, recently I've been playing a little game with myself.  I have been trying to save as much money as possible when I go grocery shopping.  (I blame watching the previews for Extreme Couponing on TLC).  Anyway, last weekend, I planned my weekly shopping trip a little differently.  I pulled out the weekly sale ads for both Tom Thumb and Kroger.  Circled the things that we usually buy that were on sale at both locations, checked what coupons I had and then did my shopping at both places.  Guess what?  Just by doing that...I saved $65 with coupons and sale items.  Holy crap!  Anyway, this is a topic for another post...the point is whole chickens were one of the sale items that I purchased.  That meant I had to quickly get over my fear of cutting a whole chicken. 

So, I watched a few YouTube videos (I found THIS ONE to be the most helpful) and turned the above whole chicken into this...

I dont' know how good I did with the technique...but for the most part, I had eight distinct pieces of chicken.  Not as bad as I thought. The key...is a really sharp knife.  Chicken bones are strong.  And very, very crunchy.

Okay, on to the good stuff.  I seasoned the chicken parts and put some buttermilk and a little hot sauce in a big bowl. 

Threw the chicken in, let is soak for about an hour, then coated it in flour, fried it in vegetable oil for about 2 minutes on each side.  THEN put it in a pyrex dish and baked it for 35 minutes in a 350 degree oven.  The result was this...

I MADE FRIED CHICKEN!!!  Okay, so fried/baked chicken.  But really, it was pretty good.  I liked it.  JC liked it.  And Mia was giving us a preview of what I can only guess "the terrible twos" are and threw everything on the floor at least 4 times.  Not very fun. 

But, in other news...I MADE FRIED CHICKEN!!!