How to quarter a chicken

1. Wash your hands and the chicken.
2. Remove whatever is lurking in the cavity.
3. With a boning knife or a butcher knife, remove the wings.
4. Remove the wishbone. Make a wish.
5. Make a 1/2 inch deep slice lengthwise down the back. Make another slice crosswise just above the legs.
6. Flip the chicken; push skin from leg toward breast.
7. Slice to the bone along the leg, meeting your criss-cross marks on the back.
8. With both hands, pull leg away from chicken to expose leg joint.
9. Cut through muscle and cartilage to remove legs.
10. Slice gently between backbone and ribcage on both sides. Pull backbone from the body.
11. With both hands, separate breasts by pushing the breastbone out and away.
12. Remove breastbone by scraping or cutting along each side.
13. Place chicken breasts skin side up, slice.
14. Dry chicken pieces before cooking.

Hi. My name is Marc Bauer. I'm from the French Culinary Institute. I would like to show you how to cut a chicken into quarters to deep fry or saute on the top of the stove.

So I'll use a boning knife or a butcher's knife. And in order to quarter a chicken, first you remove the package with all the gizzards and heart, see if it's empty. I'm going to wash it, also, if I want to. Remove the wing bones. These, I can use it later for a sauce.

First, we're going to remove the wishbone by pulling the skin back and scraping along the side of each side of the breast. Same thing on the other side. Once you hear the scratching noise, ready to go. I put my fingers along the side of the wishbone, go all the way to the top, and remove it.

Then what you do is, you put on his back. You slice-- you make a little imprint on the back with crisscrossing. I'm going to flip it over. Pull as much skin on the breast and do a slash from the leg, from in between the leg and the breast, all the way to the crisscrossing mark.

So once I push the skin, I do a slash to the crisscrossing. Then see, I expose the joint of the leg, remove the oyster-- which is that little piece of muscle that's on the very edge of the leg-- and remove it for the leg. I'm going to do the same thing on the other side.

Then I'm going to work on removing the backbone. By doing this, you can use a chef's knife or use your boning knife. Then I remove the backbone by slicing gently between the backbone and the rib cage, and those ribs will be cutting very nicely through. I remove the backbone. Same thing on the other side. And you remove the backbone, which can be also used for the roast or for a stock.

At this point, I have my breast with the bone in. I'm going to separate the breast by doing a little slash of a quarter of an inch, the cartilage part over here. And with my hands, remove the breastbone by sliding my finger along the side of the breastbone and pulling it out from the front. This can also be used for a stock.

Once I have my breast flat, I can split it in half. Make sure I have the same amount of skin on both sides. And that's it. We have a quartered chicken.

From here on, we will either saute or deep-fry a finished product, cook the product. You can marinate it if you want to. You can season it, put some herbs below the skin if you want to. And make sure, before you cook the chicken, that you're going to dry it with a paper towel. Otherwise, it will attach to the bottom of the pan. This is how to quarter a chicken.