[Sca-cooks] the undead chicken and eggs

[Sam Wallace]

>> How would you pre-carve a chicken yet be able to present it as a (whole) chicken sitting on a next of eggs? Do you pre-cut the chicken into separate pieces and then piece them together with wires or wooden sticks to create the looks of a complete chicken? Or are you talking about just partially cutting through the pieces so that they can be easily cut or torn apart?

> One thing you could do, if you were really careful, would be to carefully remove the breast halves, carefully slice them with a sharp knife so they remain moire or less assembled, and pat them back into place on the bones, and (or possibly do this part first) go in with the tip of a pair of poultry shears and snip the joints' connective tissue without cutting through the meat or any more of the skin than necessary.

Another technique I have seen in a variety of cookbooks is to remove
the meat from the bird while keeping the skin intact, mince it into a
meatloaf-like preparation, replace it on the skeleton, recover with
the skin, and then cook. I am finishing a translation of a manuscript
in which this particular trick was done with the bird being
re-assembled inside a glass bottle, leaving only the head sticking
out.

Guillaume