Everyone, no matter where they live and what they do to earn a crust, has to acquire certain "life-skills" in order to survive the everyday. I don't mean basic mechanical human functions like standing upright or sitting the right way on the lavatory, I mean real skills that would otherwise make life unbearably tricky, like tying shoelaces, drinking hot coffee, nose-breathing, that kind of thing.

And, for me, one of the skills that I would include under this category is basic poultry butchery. It's a skill that, once learned, will enable you to do several key things with aplomb: carve a roast chicken at the table (to gasps of amazement, perhaps even applause, from your guests), make a banging chicken soup, and, most critically given these straitened economic times, save money.

Most of us are unlikely ever to find ourselves, unless we're avid hunters or have a fortuitous car accident, faced with dismembering anything larger or more gruesome than a ready-plucked and refrigerated oven roaster, so, fear not, we aren't talking about getting to grips with a real-life, squirming creature that might bleed on you here. And, if the thought of becoming familiar with a whole dead bird makes you squeamish, you are quite welcome to continue getting fleeced by Jim Perdue for his boneless, skinless chicken breasts—it's your money. As you can tell, my preference is to don an apron, roll-up my sleeves, purchase a whole chicken (preferably organic since by buying it whole you're saving more than the per pound difference) and, armed with a sharp boning or carving knife, take it apart myself.

I am a very visual learner and first attempted chicken butchery after being enthused by how easy Jacques Pepin made it look on his show The Complete Techniques. Suffice it to say that even after watching a few re-runs on DVR/TiVo, it wasn't an overwhelming success and, by the time I was done, the poor beast looked as ragged and mangled as if it'd be hacked at by a blind woodsman. Now, of course, even Monsieur Pepin had to practice to get where he is today, but I had failed to notice that, later in the show, he demonstrated how to correctly carve a roasted chicken - a far easier proposition, since not only does cooking tenderize and ease the flesh from the carcass, but a cooked bird is far less slippery than a raw one. So, my advice is to practice for the first few times on a roasted chicken, as quite apart from the comparative ease, you can just eat any mistakes as you progress. Only then should you graduate to a raw bird.

[But even when you do, you should follow exactly the same steps as for the cooked bird below, except for the initial removal of the skin which is as easy as using a folded paper towel to improve your grip and pulling pretty hard. Baked or fried, chicken skin is considered a delicacy in Japan and China, and is commonly eaten in tacos in Mexico, but you could always just sling it, if that grosses you out.]

Carving/Butchering a Chicken

Taking a freshly roasted chicken, (see basic recipe below) that has been removed from the oven (or, as in our pictures, a whole, raw organic chicken) and allowed to rest for 10 or so minutes (so it's cool enough to handle), face it away from you so that you're looking at it from the narrow end of the breast and the drumsticks are pointing towards you. Take your (super sharp) carving (or boning) knife, and make a curved incision through the skin where the breast meets the thigh on both sides so that you can see the bird's hip joints.

Gently holding the left thigh, pull it carefully to your left, away from the breast, and slightly towards you to extend the joint. Now insert the tip of your knife into the joint and cut through the ligaments attaching the thigh to the body before continuing and slicing all the way through down to your board. The whole leg should now be in your left hand. Place it on a warm platter, then turn the bird around, and repeat the process for the right leg. Easy, right? For the wings, you want to adopt a similar approach, but since they are both smaller and more fragile, they are trickier and can easily break off at the elbow joint if treated too roughly. Slice a semi-circular incision around the top side of the skin where the left wing meets the body, again so you can see the joint. Holding the wing gently and as close to the shoulder as possible (to prevent the "forearm" coming off in your hand), pull out and backwards to open the joint. Insert the knife, snick through the ligaments, and cut the wing off completely. Repeat on the other side. Wings should join legs on warm platter.

Now comes the tricky bit—the breast—though you've already made it easier for yourself to access it by removing the limbs. Again, turn the chicken (now reduced to a strange-looking golden hump) so the narrow end of the breast is pointing towards you. Slice into the middle of the bird between the two breasts about halfway up/down. If you're exactly in the middle, you'll encounter the narrow breastbone, and if you're slightly to one side, you should feel it against your knife. Continue cutting downwards with the point of your knife until you hit more bone—this time it's the ribs. Then draw your knife back towards you, separating the breast from the breast bone on both sides before turning your chicken around (so the head-hole/cavity) is facing you, and do the same thing until you've got two long (neat-ish) incisions along the breast bone. Now, starting on the right breast, trace a line from the slim end of the breast to just above where the leg used to attach to the body. Angling your knife at about 90 degrees initially, make that cut, inserting your knife carefully under the breast and far enough in so you're cutting between the rib cage and the breast, freeing the breast as you go, but at a slight angle so as not to leave too much meat on the ribs. When you reach the leg, give the chicken a half-turn so you have the left breast broadside to you. Re-insert your knife in the most recent cut and slice against the ribs again towards the point where the wing met the body. And, finally, turning the bird so that the thick end of the breast is facing away from you, insert your knife at the end of the last cut again, and slice upwards (still keeping your knife against the ribs) to complete your trip around the breast. If you've done this perfectly, the breast should now be completely detached. If you haven't, don't panic. Simply take a peek under the breast, check what you missed and calmly complete the job. Remove right breast to warm platter, and turning the bird so that the narrow end of the left breast is facing you, repeat the process on this side.

You should now have a naked (or mostly naked) carcass sitting on your cutting board, surrounded by a few stray off-cuts and plenty of delicious juice. Drain juice into your gravy boat and serve with the chicken and do not throw away the carcass. Not only does the underside (the back) have plenty of meat that is perfect for chicken salad (or something else - keep reading), but once you've stripped that off (fingers are best), you will have a chicken carcass that is perfectly prepared for making stock.

So, take the largest pot you have, place it over medium heat, and add two tablespoons of olive oil. Brown the carcass well on all sides before tossing in a couple of halved onions, 2 halved carrots, four (or six) peeled garlic cloves, a couple of halved sticks of celery (preferably with leaves), a teaspoon of black pepper corns and a bouquet garni (a leek leaf wrapped around parsley stems, thyme and a bay leaf and tied up with butcher's string). Fill up the pot with cold water. Bring to a boil and simmer for at least 3 hours. Strain off the solids, discard the carcass, and check the seasoning - you'll probably need to add salt. Allow to cool before spooning off excess fat.

You now have chicken stock, aka chicken broth, which the addition of some broken spaghetti and some of the off-cuts from your slightly clumsy first butchery attempts can turn into a magnificent homemade chicken noodle soup.

All in all, and depending on how many you're feeding, you can make between 2 and 8 great meals from one chicken, i.e. for roughly the same price as a pair of your skinless, boneless chicken breasts that would only feed two. Once you graduate to butchering the uncooked chicken, you can store the various body parts in single-serving freezer bags, exactly like they do at your supermarket, and get them out whenever you're ready. And, you can still make the stock from the carcass in exactly the same way as above. See what I mean about it being a life skill? After a bit of practice, you can move on to getting that nose-breathing thing figured out.

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