In this tutorial I’ll be showing you how to cut a chicken wing, using only two cuts of your knife.
It’s super easy once you get the hang of it. You’ll be preparing and cutting chicken wings into three pieces, ready for yummy dishes such as hot wings.
I’ll also go into cutting wings off a whole raw chicken which is useful for baked dishes when they require you to cut a chicken in to 8.
Cutting a chicken wing into 3 pieces
OK, you’ve brought home your store bought chicken wings. Start with rinsing the chicken wings and inspecting for any bruises. Depending on how bad the bruising is, you could cut that part out or use the wing for chicken stock.
A chicken wing has three parts. The tip, middle and end part.
The middle and the end is what we’re going to be using to cook with as it has the most meat. The wing tip is basically bones and skin, I like to use that for chicken stock or you could just discarded it.
You’ll notice that a chicken wing has two sides.
There’s one side that is a bit Dome in shape and that’s where the majority of the chicken meat is. When you flip it over you will notice the underside is more bony.
It’s easier if you cut the chicken wing with the bony side facing upwards, as it’s easier to see the joints.
Because what were trying to do is cut at the joints. If you run your finger along the bone side of the wing you’ll feel the joints, they feel like little bony knobs. That’s actually the cartilage, and that’s exactly where we want to cut two separate our wings in to 3.
If you cut the wings a little bit to the left or right of the cartilage, your going to hit bone and it will splinter. You will know when you hit the bone, your knife will feel resistance and it will be harder to cut.
If you do hit bone, make sure to remove any bone that has splinted before cooking.
To cut the wing, simply make two cuts to at the joints as shown below.
Cutting wings from a whole raw chicken.
Here is a technique to cut the wings off a whole raw chicken. Cutting the wings off a raw chicken is a bit more involved than when they are already separated and will take some practice to do it correctly without removing too much meat from the breast.
Grab the whole chicken and face the wings towards you. If done correctly the chicken breasts will be facing away from you.
Next would be to turn the chicken upside down so the head is resting on the chopping board. This is so the chicken is stable for an easier safer cut. Because when you make the cut with your knife, it will be closer to the chopping board.
Now that you have the chicken place, grab a wing and pull it slightly away from the body of the chicken and run your knife downwards at the joint.
You may need to turn the chicken slightly to work your way around the wing, try now to take too much off the breast in the process.
To cut the other wing, now hold the chicken so the breast is facing you, and make the cut. This is a little bit tricky because of the angle and it just takes practice to feel comfortable doing it.
It’s easy as that to cut a chicken wing for those yummy wing dishes you have planned for the family. I guarantee once you prepare a 1 kg ( 2 pounds ) of wings will be a pro at it.