Butterfly a Chicken

To butterfly a whole chicken means to remove the chicken's backbone so you can open the chicken like a book, or a butterfly, and lay it flat. This easy technique, requiring only a set of poultry shears and about a minute of time, gives you a chicken that cooks faster and more evenly than a whole chicken. In this quick video tip, Fine Cooking's test kitchen manager, Jennifer Armentrout, shows you how it's done.

For a recipe using butterflied chicken, see Elizabeth Karmel's Beer-Brined Butterflied Chicken.