Cleaning Chicken for Chicken Noodle Soup

Video Transcript

"Hi, Chrissy Lyons with Expert Village. Here we are in the next segment to talk about what to do with the ingredients. First and foremost you got to get everything going. I usually start with cleaning up the chicken. In the soup I usually use a stockpot which I've got on the stove already. Getting the water heated up a little bit. And I figure three chicken breasts will do if you use about three quarters of the pot full. When I'm cleaning the chicken, I usually have the water running a little bit and run it under the water. And I try to get any excess bits on the insides of the bones. When you're making the soup, I usually use boneless, no skinless but with bones. You want the bones in the chicken breast because it gives the chicken more flavor. Yet you don't want the excess skin, because all it does is add extra fat and grease and will require more skimming. Which we'll get to in a little bit. Here's a trick that I do around the kitchen and I don't know if you do, but you know what? If you have scissors that you use in the kitchen, keep them just for your food and it makes life so much easier to snip off any little bits. This is a pretty good piece. Doesn't require too much trimming. I'll get just rid of some of these tendons and little bits of excess and set it back on the cutting board. And get the next one. See these are pretty good. See the bones in there? There's the main breast bone. They're really pretty good. Don't need too much. And your little bits of, like this little bone, just pull that off cause you don't want that going into the soup. They're really in pretty good shape. There's the second one. Put that over there. Now this one's got a little bit more. See how you just take the scissors along. And if you get some of the skin, don't worry about it or the meat. You're just getting rid of that excess fat cause you really don't need it. And it makes the soup clear. And that seems to be the trend today. Less fat. It's healthier. So there we've got the three breasts ready to go. Always remember too when you're cooking with chicken as you know, salmonella seems to be a main concern. So you're always wanting to wash your hands and keep things clean. Next thing I'm going to do is put the chicken in a colander and we're going to put some boiling water over that. We'll keep going with the cleaning of the rest of the vegetables and whatnot. See you in a minute."