How to carve turkey by Chef Jet Tila

It’s Thanksgiving and I stumbled on this video on FaceBook by Chef Jet Tila about how to carve turkey.

A few years ago I was working in a kitchen and someone asked me how they could help. I pointed him at a shallow baking tray with a baked chicken on it and asked him to part it out. Then I turned and concentrated on something else.

I’d expected my helper to know how to part out a chicken (breast, wings, drumstick, thigh, then save the carcass for good broth). I was caught off guard and completely surprised when after struggling with it for a long while he came back to me with a tray of what we’ll refer to as “gobets” of chicken. In medieval cookbooks they will often instruct you to “hew it to gobets” meaning take a piece of meat and cut it down into bite sized pieces. He had managed to wrestle most of the meat off the chicken.. but I don’t think any of it, aside from the wings, were still in identifiable parts.

Don’t be like that guy.

This is a helpful and timely video about how to easily part out a turkey (or chicken). Since whole chickens are usually cheaper to buy than chicken parts I highly recommend buying them whole.