Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [161]
2. Add the lemon juice to the skillet, and let it simmer briskly over medium heat for about 20 seconds, while scraping loose cooking residues from the bottom and sides of the pan, using a wooden spoon. Add the chopped parsley and the remaining tablespoon of butter, stir rapidly for 4 or 5 seconds, then turn the heat down to low and return the fillets to the pan together with any juices they may have shed in the plate. Turn them over in the pan juices 2 or 3 times, then transfer, together with the juices, to a warm platter. Garnish with the thin slices of lemon, and serve at once.
Boning a Whole Chicken
A WHOLE CHICKEN with its bones removed makes a beautiful natural casing for any stuffing. It is great fun to bring it to the table—its chicken shape less angular, more voluptuous, but intact—and to carve from it, without any effort, perfect, solid, boneless slices.
You will find nothing baffling about boning a chicken. Equipped with patience, a small, sharp knife, and of course, a chicken, you could easily figure it out for yourself. Nearly all of the bird’s carcass—backbone, ribs, and breastbone—conveniently comes away in one piece once it has been loosened from the flesh. The thigh and drumstick bones must be removed separately, and you must start with those. The wings are not worth fussing with: Their bones can be left in place.
What you must be careful about is never to cut or tear the skin, except for a single, long incision down the back, which you must make to get to the bones and which you will later sew up. Chicken skin is wonderfully strong and elastic, when intact. But any breach will spread into a yawning gap. To keep your knife from slipping and puncturing the skin, always turn the blade’s cutting edge away from the skin and toward the bone you are working on.
When you have finished boning, you’ll be faced with what looks like a hopelessly confused and floppy mass that in no way resembles a chicken. Don’t panic. When the stuffing goes where the bones used to be, the bird will fill out in all the right places and look absolutely lovely.
1. You will need a very sharp knife with a short blade. Place the chicken with the breast down, facing the work counter, and make a single, straight cut from the neck all the way down to the tail, probing deeply enough to reach the backbone.
2. Do one whole side of the bird at a time. Begin at the neck, detaching the flesh from the bones by prying it loose with your fingers and, where necessary, cutting it from the bone with the knife. Always angle the blade’s cutting edge toward the bone and away from the skin. Continue thus as you work your way down the chicken’s back.
3. When you have passed the midway point and are approaching the small of the back, you will find a small saucer-shaped bone filled with meat. Pull the meat away with your fingers, cutting it loose with the knife when necessary. Further on you will come to the hip joint. Use your fingers to loosen as much of the meat around it as you can, then sever the joint from the carcass with poultry shears. With one hand, hold the end of the chicken’s leg, and with the other, pull the meat away from the hip bone. When you come to long white filaments—the tendons—sever them at the bone with your knife.
4. The next joint you must deal with is the one connecting the hip bone to the drumstick. Hold the hip bone in one hand, the drumstick in the other, and snap off the hip bone at the joint. You can now remove the hip bone completely, using your knife to scrape it loose from any meat still attached to it. Whenever the knife is in your hand, always think about the skin, taking care not to tear it or pierce it.
5. Next, you must remove the drumstick bone. Start at the thick, fleshy end and loosen the meat from the bone, pulling it away with your fingers when it will give, detaching it with the knife when necessary. Sever the tendons at the bone, leaving them attached to the flesh. Work your way gently to the knobby end of the drumstick,