Chicken Merlot and How to Debone a Whole Chicken

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to Around the Kitchen Table. Hopefully this week you can hear me. It was all my fault last week, my computer just wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. I think I found the trouble. In fact, I did post the corn fritters. If you didn't see it, I did a short quick video by myself on that so you can go back and look. They were delicious. Susan, I'm here, you're here. You can hear me, I can hear you, everything's good.

I'm kidding, I'm kidding. No, you know what, hopefully all that stuff happened last week so then you're good for the rest of the year. You know, you're good for the rest of the year, that's it.

I wouldn't count on that, but you know, it's a nice thought.

Yeah, yeah, so I'm going crazy because my son's getting married on Saturday, and we are hosting a rehearsal dinner at our house on Friday, which we're really excited about. And, you know, the tent is actually going up right now, and, you know, food is ordered and everything. And you know what? We don't entertain that much, and, you know, I get that excitement now, you know, when we are. And, uh, You know, there's something we should talk more about, about entertaining. You know, there's a lot of nerves— oh, great. There's a lot of nerves that can— sorry. Okay, I have an app, a video app on my phone, it's called Ring.com, and when my phone, when my doorbell rings, I can see and speak to whoever is there from my phone.

Wow!

And let me tell you, it's life-changing. I am out, my husband and I are out at a store, someone rings the bell and we can speak to them.

Do you need a camera on the door then, I guess?

It's integrated in with the doorbell.

Wow, that's so cool.

It's life-changing.

Do you need a special doorbell?

Yeah, you buy the doorbell, it's easy to install and you have crystal clear HD video and you can see them and they can't see you but you can communicate.

Very cool.

So yeah, it's really great.

Oh my God, yeah.

So yeah, go ahead.

Is this your last wedding?

Oh my gosh, this is the last one and then we are officially empty nesters, which we're happy and ready for and everything. So today I have to put— we're having guests from Denmark, some of my family, several families from Denmark are coming. So we have 9 bedding— I have 9 beds to make up and all kinds of stuff, but it's all good stuff. It's all good. And in between, I'm in the middle of my kitchen remodeling. We're going to do yours soon. So we just got our appliances installed. I need a college education. I need to fly you in to help me. It's like the technology today. That, you know, it's crazy.

You know, I see that on a lot of things, and I think I just want the one with knobs. I want— I don't want the one with all the controls that I need.

They're going back to knobs.

Yeah, knobs were a good thing. I mean, I— and they look pretty, you know. I don't know, I guess I'm old school in that respect.

Well, you and a whole lot of other people, which is why they are going back to knobs, or they're offering an option. You know, some people just don't want all that tech. And there's a new oven that is going to come out next year that I just saw on TechCrunch, which is actually developed by a couple of geeks, you know, and I think they have a chef in there too. Just look up oven and TechCrunch and maybe it will come up. But, you know, it operates via an app, you know, but You know, some of these smart appliances, you know, with apps, I feel like they can be a little gimmicky and not as useful as doing certain old-school things that are sometimes faster than bringing up the app and checking in on the app, you know.

I think a lot of the issue may be that some people don't really use their kitchens the way they used to, so they want something pretty that looks functional, but, you know, I've gone into kitchens where the people tell me, you know, I've never used that oven, or we don't use it often, or, you know, it's just like, really? You know, the house is beautiful, but, you know, they don't entertain, they don't cook that much, it's order out, or it's—

Oh, that's the joke with kitchen designers. That is the joke. We do these fabulous kitchens and the best appliances, you know, and they order takeout.

Kind of sad. But you know, it is what it is. And people, you know, as long as people want to pay for something they want, we're more than happy to get it.

That's right. There's always someone to sell it to them. So I'm so excited about today's show. So tell us what we're, what we're doing.

All right, well, we're going to do— we don't do many slow cooker recipes. And I think I was telling you that I really didn't know at first when I, when I kind of looked at it and saw it, that it was, but I thought, you know, hey, that's pretty good. Because we're getting into summer, we're getting into beach time. And in fact, we're getting ready to I'm going to leave for New Jersey next week and I'm going to pack my slow cooker because if we're up on the beach, I can start it before we go, I can put the timer on, and when we come home, dinner will be basically done. You don't always have to order takeout. This is a really tasty recipe and it's pretty adaptable. I try to make you understand most recipes are. It's going to start with a whole chicken, but I'm going to cut it up. I thought, what better than to show you really how to cut up a chicken, and then I can even show you how to debone it. A little bit.

Oh yeah, you say that so casually. I've spent my lifetime not knowing how to debone a chicken, and every once in a while trying. I mean, I feel like I'm an otherwise intelligent person, but I look— but, you know, take us slowly through it.

Well, you got a whole chicken, and this is actually one that I picked up at Sam's Club, and it is a cage-free vegetarian-fed, and I forget what else it had on the package. So it's really a healthier chicken. And when you get stuff— you know, poultry, anything you get meat-wise, if you can get that pasture-raised, which is the key phrase, that's always better. But if not, you know, you want to try and have animals that are ethically treated, and this is hopefully a little better than some that's out there. And it's healthier for you in the case too. So we've got a whole chicken. Now you can do this a couple of different ways. Now let's say I wanted to just— if I was just going to cut this right up into 8 pieces, I could start from the breast side or I could start from the back side. Now what I'm going to do with this is I'm going to show you how I would prep this to either roast it whole in the oven or to do it on the grill. In that case, I'm going to take out the backbone first. So all I do is I find the little tail right here and you see I started to make a cut. As I pull the tail away, I'm just going to go right down the backbone and cut. And you can stand it up if it's better for you, and you're just going to kind of cut down in here.

Oh, so you really have to— you're cutting directly through it?

Well, I'm cutting through it. I'm cutting— there are some little bones that are going to connect, and I may even— my knife is sharp enough that I can go through the bone if I have to.

But—

and you can also, if you have a really good pair of kitchen shears, shears use those. You can cut these with scissors if you have a good pair. So I basically split it here, so now I don't need to be as troubled as much if I don't want to. But I can also just come here and follow now where it was, or I can lay it flat and just kind of cut through.

So you're sort of carving through the bone. Okay.

And you know, if you get a stubborn piece, just hit it with the heel of your hand.

Oh, okay. Okay?

Other than using a cleaver and beating it to death. So now this, if you're going to make stock or even in the slow cooker, you might want to throw this in because there's going to be a lot of flavor in this piece. So when we make stock, we save all that. You're going to want to rinse. We're going to rinse this out a little bit, all these little—

mm-hmm.

Gizzards or whatever they are. So let me run that under a little cold water.

And you know, I always did it— I always tried— attempted to do it from the top, from the breast side. I never tried from the upside down, from the back side. So is that easier, do you think?

Well, it's easier in a way that you get to open it up like this. And what I'm saying right now is First thing I'm going to do is I'm going to trim a little of this fat right here out of this. Again, this is really good for stock if you're going to have stock. At this point, let's say I wanted to grill it. I'm going to turn it over and I'm going to put it on the grill flat, just like that. You saw I flattened it out a little bit.

You're like butterflying it.

I butterflied the chicken. Now it will roast a lot faster this way too in the oven.. You can put a nice layer of potatoes or other vegetables under it, season it up, oil it up really nice, put a little olive oil on it, season it up really good, and either put it on the grill or put it on the oven.

Okay, let me, let me ask you, something comes to mind when I see it that way, and I could be wrong. I've been wrong once before, but I don't know, chicken under a brick comes to mind. Is that Is that along those lines?

Yeah, you could do that. I mean, basically it's just kind of a gimmicky routine, and if you do use a brick, make sure it's a clean brick. You have to watch some of the materials and what they're glazed with because some bricks are glazed with properties that are going to get you sick.

Okay, but what's the purpose of— what's the purpose of— I mean, this is beyond today. But what's the purpose of the heaviness of a brick?

The weight is going to push it down and it's going to cause, cause it to like compress a little and flatten, and the heat's going to travel through it a little faster. Okay, so it's gonna, you know, in terms of taste, I don't know how much it does.

No, I mean, does it have to do with moistness? Is it more moist that way? Is it more tender? Or not really?

I don't think either. To be honest with you, I think you're— think of a hamburger. When you put a hamburger on a grill and you press down on it to make it cook faster, what happens? The juice runs.

Right. Right.

Okay? So depending upon the amount of pressure, if you put a little bit of pressure on it, it's probably going to help it cook faster. It might help it get a little bit of a crust on it. I've never done one, so I'm not sure.

Okay, but that's not even pertinent to this recipe. No, but it's not that type of cooking.

Yeah, but if you wanted to do it on the grill, I've often thought of doing it on the grill and taking a brick, going to Home Depot and getting a patio block, wrap it in foil.

Yeah.

Okay, just remember to do that. So, and I think, but this cooked, you know, I did one on the grill like this, it cooked pretty fast. I think it was in about an hour it was done. It really was. Pretty quick. It was over direct heat too. So this is done if you want to just take this chicken and run with it, okay, and put it and cook it that way. Now if we want to separate it more, we can go right down here. The easiest way to do is just kind of split, and even if we were doing it from the top without letting it down and it was a regular whole chicken, and then you'll find there's a breastbone in here. Depending upon what kind of knife you have, you want to follow this little piece of breastbone. You can either use a small knife like this and just follow along.

Oh, I've never seen it done that way. Great.

It will almost pull right off. That's your separator right there. Now, if you want to completely debone it, you want to do it at this point. We'll show you that in a bit. Confuse people. But that's how to get it from there. Alright, so now we've got that off there. So I'm just gonna come to this side now and just run my little sharp knife right down this again.

And is that about a 3 or 4 pound chicken you're working with?

Yeah, it's about a 3 and a half. Generally they run around 3 and a half, 4 pounds. The ones that you get rotisserie are usually a little smaller because they're cheaper, but if you buy a whole chicken in the grocery store, it's usually going to be— so see, I'm just kind of pulling the meat away.

Yes.

I'm actually taking it off all the bone right now. I just follow it, and this is the whole key to deboning anything.

You're a surgeon. You're a chicken surgeon.

Let gravity help you.

Chef Dennis the chicken surgeon.

Surgeon, I love it. The colonel will be calling me pretty soon. All right, so here I've actually taken off just about all of the breastbone here. Now I'm just going to come in here and whack it just to free up a little room. All right, but here it's just about— the breast is off. You can see there's the tender right there. Here's the chicken tender.

Oh, okay.

So here, you know, we can cut that off or you can leave it on. And then this bone right here— where the hell that's from— but a lot of times if you just kind of twist and pull—

yeah, I've tried that too—

it's in here. Okay, and then that'll come out. Alright, so the breast is completely deboned right now. So at this point, I'm just gonna step right in here and cut it. And I do have a little bone here, so it's not completely deboned. There's one left. And again, anytime you have a little bone, hold on to it, hold on to it. And they do make cutting gloves if you're a little uncertain. If you're afraid of cutting yourself, go on Amazon and look for cutting gloves. Oh, wow! About maybe $15 a pair. And the whole trick to using a cutting glove is you want to slip a plastic glove over top of it so it doesn't keep getting really dirty all the time.

Mm-hmm. Okay.

So there's— that's it. Now, if I want to take the wing off, I'm gonna find a joint. Right in here.

Oh, that's what I have trouble with.

And you're not always going to get it, but you just want to try and find it. And if you have a sharp knife, you're going to get close enough.

Okay.

All right, and then just hit it with the butt of your hand, and that's good enough. I have a little piece of bone here, so if I want to continue to take this out, I'm just going to come up in here. And again, I have not deboned a chicken in a long time.. And as you do it, because you know you can buy them deboned, because as you do it more and more, you'll get more practice at it and it'll come a little easier. But really, if you think about it, buying your own, cutting them down, if you can get something that's organic or get something that's free-range, you know, you're much better off and it's going to be cheaper in the long run. So this is one completely deboned breast, nothing on it.

All right, nice.

The leg portion. And again, with the leg portion, you just want to kind of— you can open it up a little bit if you want to, cut the skin. Try and find where that bone is and then just get in here. Sometimes it'll slide a little for you if you find the right joint and just cut down. Got a lot of skin here. We're just going to get rid of this, use it for stock. All right, and you can get rid of— there's a little bit of breastbone hanging on to this baby. Let's get rid of that. And normally I have a little bit of a longer deboning knife. So, you know, if you have a thinner blade, you can bone them, they work really well too. All right, so that's it. And there's a little bit of a thigh bone in here. And to get rid of a thigh bone, what you want to do is you want to come in here with your knife See where it's running? It's running down here.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. I'm gonna go around it, where the meat is. You can see it. If we can clear this bone out, it's by actually coming in here. And I can go underneath of it. See where the bone is coming out now?

Yep. Okay.

So you just wanna come underneath of it and just keep working your way around it.

You know what, this— as you're doing this, and for people who, you know, do manipulate their food and meats with their hands, and I'm one of those people, I put my hands into everything, it reminds me actually, oddly enough, of a touchless— the touchless faucets, kitchen faucets that are getting more popular now, and I have owned 2 of them, and so you can just put your wrist onto, you know, the faucet spout and then have the water come out, and then of course just wash your hands. But, you know, there's a lot to be said for that in the kitchen, just to, you know, keep things cleaner, a little bit cleaner.

Absolutely. You know, I'm a big fan of the touchless ones.

We may need to get you a touchless faucet. If you're interested in that.

Absolutely. See, here it's completely deboned. Now, that's not always necessary. You know, I could also pull the skin off of these really quickly to make them healthy. So that was kind of— I don't want to say a hard way, but I mean, I deboned both of these. There's no bones in them. I have all these lovely bones. And please don't just throw them away. You know, if you put it in a pot and make some stock out of them, that's a good thing. Now the other way is just to take your pieces apart. Alright, so here's a half a chicken, and you can roast a half a chicken, but if you want to take them apart, just come in here, cut that out, come in here, and just again, like, use your knife to find the joints. Knife will help you find the joints. So just come in here and clean out. That one came apart a lot easier.

Okay, I have a question. If that came from your freezer, if the chicken came from your freezer, and now you're doing all this stuff and you're getting all these other terrific castaway pieces, can you refreeze them and use them for stock later?

Yes, you can. Now, the one thing about freezing chicken, and the one way to know that chicken's always been frozen, is the bone will turn black when it's cooked. And we just call that black bone. So if you ever get chicken, like you get chicken wings out and the bones, you notice the inside's black, that's because they were frozen.

Okay, okay. So I could defrost, cut, and then refreeze the goods?

Technically, you know, they say we can do that with meat too. You know, everything can be refrozen again.

I never do that. I never refreeze. I only refreeze cooked.

But no, you can. So again, you want to come in here and you want to kind of find where the bone is.

Is that— I mean, you could gather a whole bunch over time, over a month or two, a whole bunch of good stuff to then make into an amazing stock.

Absolutely. So here we have the thigh with the bone in it, and you could debone it if you want, and a leg. And I actually had a guy teach me— that used to teach you how to debone a leg, which was really interesting. And he used to make the students do that. You know, that was part of what they would learn. But you want to get rid of a lot of this excess fat and skin here, right? Even if you leave the bone on it. So that's pretty much it. So we have this— I'm going to take out because it's just too much bone. It's cooking, you know, and I don't mind the thigh bones too much. And another thing to remember is the bones do help you transmit heat. So, you know, the bones are good for something. The bones add flavor. The bones help the heat transfer through everything. So, you know, it is— there is a good reason to leave the bones in sometimes. All right, so here we are again. Here's the chicken tender if you want to pull it off, and it's easy enough to take the skin off if we were to do that too. And then you've got a nice boneless, skinless— and you know, unless I'm going to really roast it and the skin's going to get nice and crispy, or I'm going to fry it, there really is no reason to leave the skin on it because it's going to not really be super edible.

Yeah, and especially for this recipe, it's—

right.

You know, you wouldn't want it.

But again, great stock. So some of these will have the bones, and since I'm slow cooking on it, it's not a big deal. I could even, you know, take the legs down a little bit, but it's by pulling. A lot of times the skin, just by pulling it, will come off a good deal. One thing we're not going to worry about too much is the legs. And if you wanted to make them more edible You could very easily just take this little wingy off here on the joint and boom. And if you want to split them, you can split them. All right, but sometimes a whole wing— like, I've been seeing more chicken wings being served whole like this, like Buffalo wings.

Mm-hmm.

Kind of look cool.

Yeah.

So that's it. That's deboning the chicken. And then we're going to get into making the sauce real quick. But one very, very important thing about chicken is cross-contamination. You don't want to get people sick. So whenever I work with meat, especially chicken, I'm gonna make sure that all these tables are cleaned very well with a disinfectant. You know, this is one of the one times I do pull out a bleach spray, and that's just like old, old habits die hard kind of thing.. But make sure you use a good cleaner that's going to clean everything. Scrub down all the utensils, and then when you're done, wipe down the sink, wipe off the handle for the water, go back to your refrigerator and wipe off all the handles there too, because, you know, you don't think about where your hands have been.

Yeah, you're right. Good point. Good point.

You're always touching things, and that's the last thing you want. So Let me actually get a bowl. All these nice pieces in. I didn't soap wash my hands yet, I just rinsed them a little bit.

And you know, even integrating with little towel bars or even those little bathroom hand towel holders, put them around the kitchen too, maybe around the sink, maybe on the side of a cabinet, and so they're always there ready to go.

Yes. Yeah, it really is important to keep it. So we will definitely come back to this. All right, so now— and your hand— your dish towels too. Just remember to always take them. So here's my slow cooker. So I deboned the chicken. Now at this point, I'm just going to start putting the things in because it's a slow cooker. So this is mushroom— a mushroom Merlot, and this is a little bit more mushroom than I need, but you know, I really like mushrooms.

I do too.

Again, I have been eating so much fruit and vegetables lately, I really look forward to having them. If I don't get enough vegetable with my dinner, I'm hungry.

It's funny. Once you're in that mode of eating really well, you kind of crave it, don't you?

Yeah.

I have seen that too..

And I've been eating between 8 to 12 portions of fruit. I'm getting close to being a vegetarian. Ain't gonna happen, but I'm getting close to it.

Yeah, no, you taste it more. Your taste changes.

Yeah, and I'm still loving salads, I'm telling you that. So I've got in here basic mirepoix. I've got carrots, I've got onions, and I've got celery. You'll notice that I did make these pieces a little bit bigger, okay, because I want to see them. I want it to be more of like a stew when it cooks, okay. And then I thought, when I was looking at this recipe, I said, you know, it's— I saw this lovely sauce that we're going to make, and I said it's missing something. So at that point, I decided it needed cannellini beans. Oh, okay. So again, why not? It's— you're adding more good stuff to it. At this point now, I'm just going to season these up a little bit with some black pepper. You notice I didn't put any fat in it.

That's true.

The only thing I'm missing, because I didn't have it, and I don't know why. I swear someone came in the house and took my garlic. I can't find any garlic in the house. I asked Lisa if she had been fighting off vampires. What? My garlic's gone. I don't think I used it. Okay, so that's basically it. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to make a little bit of the sauce, and we're going to put this chicken strategically placed anywhere in here.

So easy. I love my crock pot. I've had it for a long time. It's so— how long have you had yours for?

I've had it for a little over a year, and with me getting things sometimes is half the battle. I got it and then I started using it, and I started using it for ribs. So, you know, I'm going to start doing more with it. I was going to make a cassoulet, and I thought that would be a great dish for the Crock-Pot. So we're going to do this instead to start. All right, so now the ingredients are very simple. Alright, I've got some stock here, and I've actually got a vegetable stock. You could use a chicken stock in this if you wanted to. And I've got about maybe a cup. I always have a little extra in case it needs it. Alright, I've got some wine. This is actually not a Merlot because I didn't have any. This is a Pinot Noir, and it's whatever mama will drink, and mama don't like Merlots.

That's right.

And then some tomato paste, and this is organic tomato paste. The only thing I couldn't find today was organic, uh, cannellini beans, and I don't know why, but they didn't have them. I wanted cannellini beans. They had kidney, but I wanted the white bean because this is going to give it a really nice color, and I wanted to have that color.

Nice.

So mix this all up just to get everything worked in here. And you've got your wine, you've got your paste, and the only seasonings— and this would be, you know, great with some fresh herbs. If you like various fresh herbs, use them. You know, if you want to put some sage or some thyme.

Oh, I love the idea of fresh herbs. Now, would you put them in the beginning or more toward the end? Would they kind of just get bland after a while?

Well, You're going to get the— I would probably put some fresh herbs on the top.

Okay.

I'm actually going to hit this with a little more salt and pepper. I would probably put them right on the top here before I sauced it. A little bit of oregano. And I don't use oregano a whole lot, but something like this, I just wanted to have a little bit of different flavor. So then all I'm going to do is pour. You know, you don't even have to be that careful about it, honestly. I just wanted to get it in there.. And then it's going to go in the slow cooker. And if you have a two-temperature one, I think most of them are, you either want to cook it on low for about 4 or 5 hours, or you want to cook it on high for 2 and a half, maybe for about half the time, 2 and a half to 3 hours. And the chicken is going to cook through pretty good, but you want it to be tender. You don't want the vegetables underneath to be real mushy or anything. And it's important when you're slow cooking to find things that will kind of hold up for you. You could use— probably, I was actually going to use dry beans and let them just reconstitute in here.

That's a good idea too. We have a few comments, Chef. We have from Bob Stressel Jr., "Wiping down everything is key. My wife laughs at me and calls me Safety Bob." Thanks Thanks for mentioning that. You can't underestimate food safety. Totally agree. And part of that is having accessible tools nearby, such as maybe the touchless faucet. And these touchless faucets, they don't even cost so much either. Some of them cost, I don't know, a couple hundred dollars, I think. And having the little soap dispenser handy and the dish towels handy. You know, but now, Chef, speaking about dish towels, I mean, we've all used the dish towels, but what's a good substitute? Of course, there's paper towels. Is there another in-between kind of good towel that may be disposable but substantial?

I think it's important to just have enough really dish towels around that you can rotate them. I mean, I, as soon as mine looks like it's been compromised, and by that I mean, you know, something that's a smell, a liquid, a meat protein, something that is going to possibly transmit to someone else, I wash it. You know, and, you know, have enough of them so you're not, you know, you're not getting annoyed that you went through 3 dish towels at one sitting. And I think that comes from working in a restaurant. Because I would have a stack of about 10 or 20 to start my evening, and you know, as soon as something went south with one, you know, I went away. The other thing I like, and again, maybe from working in— from business dining, was we always had like handy wipes or something along that nature.

That's what I was wondering, if there was something else that you may, you know, that could work.

Food service towels. Chix made food service towels, and they were a little bit sturdier than Handy Wipes. I don't know if you remember— do you remember Chix at all? They were white.

I think so.

Yeah, they were big for a little while, maybe in the '70s or somewhere around there, and institutions always used them, but they kind of faded from view because they're expensive. You know, more people started going back to having their own towels and washing them and just recycling them. And, you know, one place I worked at, they didn't even dry them, you know, and they kitchen, you got to be careful because you can get burned. But they were just a little damp. They would spin damp, and you would just keep using those to clean with.

So, right. And Coach G. Moore asks, did you precook the beans? But you didn't. You used the can.

I used can— cannellini beans. I did rinse them well. Okay, you want to make sure the beans are all clean and rinsed off, and when you put them in there —so you're not—

Oh, that's a good point. That's a good point that you rinse them.

You know, in some soups I didn't, and I would use the thickness of the liquid they were in as kind of a flavor enhancer. But if I'm putting them in a dish, I don't want it clouded, or I don't want to have— you know, probably wouldn't have mattered here as much, but I did rinse them in this case. Cool. Good.

And one more. From our friend David Leopold. With your carving, Chef Dennis Littley, I'm reminded of Julia Child, who loved to cut up a turkey before she cooked. And for the best stock, I've been told to get as much of the chicken bone marrow as possible.

What do you think? Marrow is a wonderful thing. That's why you want the bones. And you could cut the bones in half. You could roast the bones first, although I think with the chicken stock, it's not really as necessary. You can get a little bit more flavor out of it if you, if you do roast them. With beef bones, if you're doing stock, or veal bones, you do want to roast those bones before you make stock out of them, and then you want to try and chop them up a little bit. But that, that can be really tedious, and you're almost better off having your butcher cut them for you with a bandsaw before you roast them so you don't end up losing digits in the process. Yeah, we don't want that to happen. Turkeys, we would get whole turkeys everywhere I worked, and you didn't buy those store-bought turkey breasts when you were serving. For lunch meat, it was fine, but for roast turkey or something, you had to debone them. I was never deboning 1 or 2 of them. I was deboning about a dozen of them. Wow. Turkeys actually aren't— if you have— the chef's knife I have is not really good for deboning, but they have a deboning knife with a thin blade. It's kind of curved a little bit, and if you have— it's about maybe 6-inch to 8-inch blade, and that really allows you to get in really well while holding the meat, you know, away from you, because as your hands get close, that's when you start to slip.

Yes, I used— I used to have a Henckels knife like that, beautiful knife. I think my husband used it as a sheetrock knife. And then bye-bye. That was it.

Well, you know, that's one of the reasons I don't worry about it. I don't buy expensive knives. I buy a good knife sharpener. And then when a knife has seen better days, it just goes bye-bye. And I got another knife because, you know, generally you can get a nice Dexter knife off of, again, Amazon, you know, for $30 that'll last you, can go in the dishwasher if you really want to, and, you know, hold up pretty well. But if you like showing off knives, you like being fancy, and, you know, and it's one of your things that you like as a toy, you know, then getting really good knives is also a good thing too, right?

Right. Listen, I want to get in this last comment, which— question, which is a good one, from Davinia. And she says, Chef Dennis, if I rest my chicken, how do I make the skin more crispy. I try everything and it did not work. I'm not 100% sure what she means. Do you?

No. I think she's saying roast. Okay. English is not her first language. Okay. What you want to do, Davinia, if you're roasting a whole chicken is you want to make sure you rub it down with some kind of fat, with some oil, with some butter. With something that's going to help it crisp up. And then a high temperature is always good. So you may want to start the chicken out at a very high temperature or end it at a very high temperature so the skin gets crispy. That's, that's about the only way you can really do it. Or if you just want to take a little chance with the broiler and turn that on to crisp it up a little bit more. But if you go at a high temperature instead of 350, you know, start it out or spend about 15-20 minutes at 400 and then crank it down. That'll, that'll help a little more too.

Good. Well, thanks. Great comments, great questions. And look at that. That looks, that looks terrific. And I bet it's going to smell up your kitchen, your whole house.

I'm anxious to get it in there. And I'm going to— what time is it? It's 12:30. I'm going to, I'm going to slow cook it and let it go for about 4.5 hours. Nice. And not rush it because sometimes the too high of a temperature can really make everything a little too soft. So if you can slow cook it, really use— get the advantage of it, you're better off doing that too.

Looks great. Looks terrific. Thank you again. And you know, there you have it. Just put it in the pot and then leftovers are even better., right? In the crock pot.

Absolutely. This is how I do ribs, too. I have a great recipe for ribs on my blog because I am not the grill master. That's for certain. It really is nice to use, and you can have fun with it, too. It frees you up some time. You saw how quick it really was. If you want to buy the chicken cut up already, buy the chicken cut up already. It's not a big deal. All right. Thank you, and remember, next week we won't be here because I'll be on the road. I'll be driving back to New Jersey, and as soon as I get settled, we'll come back with the show, and I will have something tasty for you from up north.

Good, good, good. Okay, we'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye. Bye, everyone.