Today will be a short post and actually on two related topics. The first group of pictures are from a course in Sausage I took one fine Saturday almost exactly 4 years ago at the CIA. Actually the pictures are from a different course taught by the same Chef, Chef LeBlanc, but I think the pictures will show why I used these.

First is the kitchen. I'm not certain which of the kitchens in Roth Hall this was in. I don't think it was one of the Garde Mange kitchens on the main basement hall, but the one stashed in a forgotten corner of the basement, gaurded by a maze.

The woman in the foreground was one of my two partners this day, the classes typically are divided into groups. Sometimes doing the same things, in other classes the groups do different items. The sausage course was a mixture, all groups did three basic sausags and each did one nobody else did.



That is the two of them, a mother daughter (OK I thought they were sisters). The daughter is in television food and I expect to see her on the Food Network some day.



She even smiled a lot.



This is Chef LeBlanc responding to a  simple query of mine about a technical fine point.



Which brings us to the main thing. The previous post was about chicken sausage. Before that bowl of skined boned chicken thights came to be, it had to be fabricated. That is 40 chicken quarters with backs. I need 3.5 lbs of meat, so I am going to have a bit left over.



That is the result. Legs, thighs and unseen backs.  They are in a stockpot already. Only the thighs will be used for the sausage and as I recall only a dozen of those. The rest got frozen in single meal put ups (for two people that is).

After enough experience you can find the point where the thigh and leg join easily, or you can have the quarters almost frozen, use a very sharp knife and brute force and cut through the bone. As a point of ease, before you cut the leg from the thigh, dislocate the thigh from the back, the leg adds a place to grip. The quarter will dimple at the dislocation and should be cut free there.







The picture below shows the process of skinning the thigh, first the whole thigh, pull the skin from the top and cut it off.



Then flip it over, 2nd thigh from right, and cut the fat/skin glob at about 2 o'clock. The skin and fat all go in the stock pot.



Now we cut the meat free. The skinned thigh, followed by one side of the bone cut free.



2nd thigh from right showes the other side cut free and the right thigh shows a third piece cut off, essentially the back. There isn't waste, the bone and flesh left on it go into the stock pot. I'm not finished yet, and I've put up 5.75 gallons of poultry stock this past weekend. I actually am running out of pints and the last batch and the next will be in quarts.



And the bowl in the upper right is 3.5 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thigh in sizes that the YM will grind.