Pantry Raid

Stuffed glove boned cornish game hen

We glove boned chickens and ducks today.

What does that mean exactly?

In a nutshell – it’s taking the bones out of a bird without making a slit in the skin.

Gasp!

Impossible! You say. It cannot be done!

Well, to an extent, it kinda is impossible. But you can get MOST of the bones out without slitting the skin. If you are careful.

Pretty much the only bones you will have left are at the very tip of the wing and the very tip of the leg bone.

So… How do you do it?

Here is a pretty good play by play of how to do it.

Why on earth would you want to do this?

Well, you could make a Turducken out of it I suppose – although that’s a bit different since you roll it up (not NEARLY the technical skills required for glove boning).

Or just impress all your friends with your butchering skills. The photo above is my stuffed cornish game hen (done at home). I stuffed it with an apple, raisin, bread stuffing. Many people like to stuff these birds with rice, but I have a rice aversion* so that’s a no-go for me.

So let’s take a look at how I did.

Attempt #1 = notice knife cut in the left leg

Attempt #2 = the champion!

Above is the front of the bird. Kinda looks like wrinkly old man. Ok, that was too far. I’m sorry for the bad imagery. Notice, though, that there are no bones except the very tip of the wings and very tip of the drumstick. That’s it. Those legs? Empty except for the meat. The wings? Ditto except for that part sticking up in the champion pose.

Attempt #1 back = sad

Attempt #2 back = better!

And there is the back. As you can see, Attempt #1 didn’t go so well. Lots of places where my knife went through the chicken skin. Put it breast side up though and no one will be the wiser.

Attempt #1 took 45 minutes to do.

Attempt #2 took 17 minutes to do.

At least I am improving!!

So after I removed the bones, I stuffed them with the aforementioned stuffing and baked.

REMEMBER to adjust times accordingly! Since there are no bones, it bakes pretty fast. But since it’s stuffed, it may take a little longer. This is a time when a probe thermometer would really come in handy…

And one last picture… the CARNAGE!

The carcass...shudder...

* Yeah, rice. If asked to give up rice for the rest of my life, that would really be no problem.