- [Narrator] Funding for this program was provided in part by: The RE Synergy Foundation, Content for the Sustainable World.

G&C Foods, quality at every turn.

Pittsburgh Spice and Seasoning Company, making life taste better.

And viewers like you.

(upbeat music) - I'm the son of a butcher.

- You might be a son of a butcher, but I'm the original butcher.

- Some ask me, what is the meat industry to you?

For me, it starts at a place where my family runs a grocery, butcher shop, and a catering business.

I'm sure it's about the business side of things, but for me, at its core, it's a story about relationships.

(upbeat music) Welcome back to this episode of "Son of a Butcher."

In this episode, I have my dad, Gale O'Neil, standing next to me, and I just wanted to show you guys how much better looking I am than him.

(laughing) - For now.

(both laughing) - No, actually, we're gonna talk to you guys about, we're gonna show you how to break down a whole chicken.

We're gonna show you the different pieces and parts of a chicken, and then we're gonna show you how to further process this.

We're gonna make a spinach and feta chicken brat.

So for the folks and the consumers that gravitate towards chicken products, this will be a hundred percent chicken.

It'll be chicken thighs and chicken breasts.

And this is gonna be a fresh chicken brat that you would take home, and you could grill it, or cook it however you would like.

So let's get started.

- It should actually taste like chicken.

(A.J.

laughing) What do you want me to do here?

- All right, so I think we're gonna start here.

We're gonna take the whole wings off.

So he's taking them off both sides.

You wanna go ahead and show 'em how to cut.

These will be whole wings.

If you would actually get cut wings he can show you where to cut that.

- So there's a piece of gristle right down through the middle.

If you just pull the wings apart, it kinda opens that up.

Just cut right through 'em.

If you want the flapper off, you can also do that.

There's also a little gristle.

You do it 30,000 times, you get the hang of it pretty quickly.

Then you can throw that away if you'd like.

- Okay, now we're gonna take off the whole legs.

- Okay.

Just give it a little slice.

You kinda pull back towards the backbone, and you just take another little piece.

You get past that little piece and then you can just pretty much pull it right off.

Do the same thing.

Just pull it and come over towards your backbone.

And just pull it and it comes right off.

And there's also- - There's the fat.

Yeah, you can see the fat line that comes down through that that separates between the drumstick and the thigh.

- [Gale] Yep, right there is the fat line.

- Why don't we go ahead and make these boneless then, 'cause we're gonna make a chicken brat.

So we'll go ahead and make these thighs boneless.

- [Gale] Just cut around here.

You gotta kinda stay away from the knuckle part so you don't get any sinew in it.

- [A.J.]

And if you wanna make it, you know, make it skinless then you just peel, that peel will just peel right off of there.

- The skin does have a lot of flavor in it though, so.

You could do either way with that one.

- And now we're gonna take the chicken back off of it.

Oh, you wanna skin the breast?

- [Gale] Yep, we'll take it.

You wanna do, let's just take that breast off there.

Be a little easier.

So you just come to the middle of the breast, you see the breastbone there.

Just go down each side.

And just follow the bone down around it.

Also, while we're doing it, you can see the chicken tender.

That's where the chicken tender comes from, the middle of it.

And there's your boneless breast.

Let's do that same thing to the other side.

Bring out that chicken tender.

And then you just peel out the rest of your breast.

- And then what he has left, you can show 'em how.

Right here would be the chicken back.

Some people like to buy the chicken backs and use it in their soup, so.

You can just follow the ribcage down to where the back is and then you can, it'll just break apart and you can separate that out.

- And a lot of people still do cook that off so all the chicken can do for a chicken noodle soup, anything rather than throwing it away.

- I just wanted, too, to point out, you know, these chickens, these are about three-pound chickens.

And you can see all the bigger that the boneless breast is on these chickens, so.

The ones that you typically would buy, and even some of the ones that we get in, they end up being quite large.

So you do have to realize that they're probably doing what, six, seven-pound birds?

- Yeah, five to five to seven is what they call 'em.

- Yeah, five to seven-pound birds whenever they're doing this.

So this would probably be a size of, like, a four-ounce, a four-ounce chicken breast, boneless chicken breast.

So if we order a box of boneless chicken breasts, we typically will ask for mediums 'cause if you get the randoms that are available now they will be, they'll typically be almost a pound a piece.

- This weekend we had a bar that wanted their chicken breasts, they wanted to make some cordon blue, make it so you just kinda butterfly that.

Put your ham, your cheese in there and you can roll right back up, and have your cordon blue there.

You can also put just a pocket in it.

We'll do a lot of times put a pocket in it just for stuffing and you can stuff it.

You can also put your ham and cheese or whatever, broccoli, whatever you want in them.

- Yes.

All right.

Now I think we'll see if dad can teach Rick how to pull apart and piece out these whole chickens right here.

- This should be a challenge.

(chicken clucking) - [Narrator] Americans consume on average of around 100 to 110 pounds of chicken per person annually with projections for 2024 and 2034 indicating figures of approximately 102.1 and 110.4 pounds per capita respectively.

This makes chicken the most consumed meat in the United States, a position it has held since 1992.

- [Rick] All right.

- Hi buddy.

- I understand you're gonna show me how to take this chicken apart without losing any digits, right?

- Without digits.

Roll your chicken over.

- Roll my chicken over, okay.

- [Gale] You kinda feel that joint where it moves in there.

- [Rick] Okay, right there, yeah.

- [Gale] Yep, all you do is just cut the back of it.

- [Rick] Holy, wow, man.

- [Gale] Okay.

Do you see that little gristle right down through there?

- [Rick] Right here?

- [Gale] You just cut right through that.

- [Rick] Oh boy.

- Look at that.

How about taking it over to that other one?

Look at him go.

- I'm all right, I'm a pro.

- Look at this guy.

How about trying one more time?

- Okay.

- [Gale] Hold your wing out.

- [Rick] Hold my wing out, okay.

- [Gale] Just cut a little bit behind it, and it'll come out through that joint.

Just lay it down.

Hit that joint again.

Look at him go.

- [Rick] And then over here again?

- [Gale] Yep.

- Okay.

- There's nothing to it.

- So I think it's having a good sharp knife, I believe.

- That helps.

Now just kinda hold your- - Flip them over.

- Pull your leg over, yep.

Cut the skin and you just kinda pull it towards the back.

- [Rick] Okay, right there where it cracks?

- [Gale] Yep, yep.

And just take your knife and go right down the backbone.

- [Rick] Right down the backbone, okay.

- [Gale] And just pull.

- [Rick] Okay.

- [Gale] Look at that, now you see that.

- [Rick] Mom would be proud.

- [Gale] You see that little piece there?

- [Rick] Right here?

- Cut the line.

See, there's lines in all this meat.

You just gotta figure out the right.

- Oh, so it's like paint by numbers.

- Oh yeah.

- Yeah?

Same thing again.

- [Gale] Get ready again.

Pull the leg over and give it a little slice.

Pull it towards the back.

- [Rick] Okay.

- [Gale] Give her a little cut.

- [Rick] Okay.

I think I messed up on that one.

- Well you're not on your- - I'm not on my line, right?

- You're not on the back.

- [Rick] I'm not on the back, right here?

- [Gale] Yeah.

- Okay, I don't know if I'm, oh, there it goes.

See, and I thought I was doing so well.

(chuckling) - That would be called a quarter chicken leg 'cause half the back's on the chicken.

- Well, I tried.

- [Gale] But take her back to that line again.

- [Rick] Okay.

- [Gale] Yeah, there.

Let's take this quarter chicken leg off there.

- [Rick] Okay, all right.

- He only missed it by a half a back there.

- Well, you know.

- There's the line.

- Okay, right here?

- [Gale] You got it.

Right there, good deal.

Now we'll just roll it back over on its back.

- [Rick] Okay.

- [Gale] You can see that little bone in there.

- [Rick] Right down through here?

- [Gale] Yep, just cut on each side.

Okay?

- [Rick] Like a V in it?

- [Gale] Yep.

Well, you're just cutting down that breastbone.

- [Rick] Oh, okay I see here, yeah.

- [Gale] There you go.

- [Rick] Okay, and just keep going down?

- [Gale] Yep, just keep going down.

You can pull that chicken tender out.

- [Rick] Maybe.

- [Gale] Oh, hold on one second, yeah, you got this.

There's your chicken tender.

- [Rick] Oh, right there, okay.

- [Gale] Yeah, just pull that out.

- [Rick] Okay, so just.

- [Gale] You got her.

Then you can just pull, kinda pull and cut as you go, and that will give you skin on breast.

- [Rick] Okay.

- [Gale] Maybe I should watch you.

Yeah, you got it close to there.

See, now right there's your chicken tender.

- [Rick] Oh, okay.

- [Gale] Yeah, you can see that.

So kinda go underneath that onto the bone right there.

- [Rick] Okay.

So then right here is your chicken tender?

- [Gale] You got her, right there it is.

Just kinda put the tender out.

- [Rick] Okay.

- There you go.

- [Rick] And then down through here?

- [Gale] Yep.

Well, you're into your bone there a little bit.

There you go.

- [Rick] Okay.

- That's a little better.

- Okay, so what you're telling me is I don't have a career as a butcher.

- It might take a while.

(both laughing) You got a few different.

- But at least I can go to the grocery store and say.

- Yeah, you can cut up a chicken.

- Cut up a chicken, right?

- The only thing different is he's got a little more meat on here, which should be on the breast itself.

- [Rick] So I just cheated the customer.

- [Gale] Well, you cheated yourself if you're selling.

- [Rick] If I'm cooking it.

- [Gale] Yeah.

- [Rick] All right.

- [Gale] And that would be into your tender.

- [Rick] Okay.

- But, yeah, pretty much everything else, you know, just as long as you keep it tight against your ribcage.

- So I guess what you're saying is I'm not college material.

- I'm not college material.

That's why I'm doing this.

- Well, I appreciate it, and I'm gonna let A.J.

come back in here and you guys get back to what you do best.

- Okay, well, thank you very much, it was fun.

- Thank you.

- [Narrator] Chicken tenders or strips became widely popular in the 1980s, gaining momentum as a kid-friendly, portable, and affordable fast-food option, though the dish itself was invented earlier, with some food historians dating its origin to the 1970s, or even the 1960s.

(soft music) - Well, you did a pretty good job teaching Rick.

I didn't know you had that in you.

- Me neither, it's luck.

(both laughing) - Well, thanks, Rick, for participating in that.

Now we're gonna get back to, we're gonna make everything boneless here as we prepare for making our brats, and we're gonna make sure we have all the skin off everything as well.

The one kind of struggle with chicken, whenever you're always boning it out and if we buy 40-pound boxes of boneless thighs with chickens being smaller, there's always a bunch of little tendons, and there's a bunch of cartilage, and little pieces of bone that can get in there.

So you always wanna be pretty thorough.

We are pretty thorough whenever we're going through this stuff.

And then also when we go to the grinding process, we're gonna be running it through our smallest knife and plate that we have.

And so that'll help make sure there's no bones, or anything passing through into the brat.

That can be one downfall of having a sharp knife.

Rick was able to go through some of the bone whenever he was doing that.

So I'm just trimming that up there a little bit.

- There is quite a bit of waste, as you see outta three chickens.

You don't get much outta these wings.

And these won't even be the jumbo wings that you get a lot of at restaurants.

These would be the small.

You might put that on your buffet, or something like that.

- Yeah, so we're left with the drumsticks.

We're not gonna mess with the drumsticks.

We'll just stick them out and put in our retail case.

- So basically there's your, what you get outta three, three-pound chickens.

- So now we're gonna take our boneless meat and we're gonna do a few more of these, so we have a nice batch to do our spinach feta chicken brats.

From here we're gonna go to the grinder and grind it through one time, and then we'll prepare our ingredients.

All right, so we're back.

We got the boneless chicken all boned out here.

And we also got our chicken feta seasoning.

And we got our feta cheese.

And we're gonna chop up some spinach to go with this.

(soft chopping) We're gonna kinda chop this up pretty fine.

Our spinach feta chicken seasoning, we get that from one of our suppliers.

They got a real good recipe for that.

So I haven't bothered or need to change it, or pull anything out of it.

(soft chopping) How's your pile looking?

- Probably a lot better than yours.

- [A.J.]

Oh?

- You think you're better looking me, right?

(A.J.

laughing) - All right, I think we got that.

That looks pretty good right there.

We're gonna go ahead and head to the grinder and grind that chicken through one time.

(waste thumping) (grinder whirring) All right, now we're just gonna mix this by hand.

So I'm gonna add our spinach feta chicken seasoning.

A lot of times for our chicken products, we don't have to add any extra water, and they blend up pretty nice without it.

There are some products like, there's a few vinegar products, there's a few things you can add for shelf life even to put in fresh chicken products.

For ours, we're gonna sell it frozen, so I'm not looking to add anything to it.

I'm trying to keep this as clean as possible, but you might see that in some of the commercial grocery stores where they'll add extra things to it, like sodium or potassium, or might just even read vinegar.

And that would be an item that's made for the shelf life.

So we got that blended up nice.

We go ahead and add the feta cheese to it.

All right.

Now we're gonna add the spinach to it.

That sure does make for a nice looking color.

- You can see how fine I cut mine.

(A.J.

chuckling) - When he wasn't looking, I had to finish chopping his up into smaller pieces.

- Yeah, the first liar don't stand a chance.

Looking pretty tasty here.

- All right, from here we're just gonna take this product and we're gonna go to the stuffer.

We're gonna stuff it in a natural hog casing.

It'll be a 32 to 35-millimeter casing, and that'll make a great chicken brat.

Okay, now we're gonna stuff the spinach feta chicken brats.

(sausage stuffer whirring) So these are natural hog casings.

We get them from our casing supply company, Quality Casings.

And this is, they're already pre-tubed so they slide on the horn nice.

(sausage stuffer whirring) Go ahead and cut that.

- [Gale] All right.

- With this stuffer, we can adjust the length of these, and we can adjust how tight we make 'em.

- And the tighter they are the firmer they get.

- It kinda depends what we're looking for, and what product we're doing.

For the chicken brat we have 'em stuffed just a little bit looser.

That way it's not such a tough, it feels like you're getting too tough of a bite.

Some products we like to make it nice and firm so they get a real meaty bite, but, especially, with fresh brats, you kinda almost want it when someone bites in it for it to be able to kind of fall apart on that snap.

So that's kinda what we were targeting here when we did this one.

And you can see it's got that nice, what I like about the stuffer is it kept that nice particle definition, so you can see the spinach throughout, and you can also see, you know, nice chunks of feta cheese throughout that product, so.

I think you'll be pleased with this.

We're gonna take this and we're gonna go to the freezer, and temper it down a little bit and then we're gonna stuff.

We're gonna put 'em in a bag and put 'em out in retail.

(soft music) - [Narrator] Bratwurst or brats originated in Germany over 500 years ago with the first recorded mention in 1313, and evolved from scraps of meat preserved into sausage for survival.

The word itself comes from the German brat, without waste, and wurst, sausage.

German immigrants brought the sausage to America, particularly to areas like Wisconsin where it became a staple at sporting events and barbecues gaining immense popularity by the mid-20th century.

(soft music) - All right, now we're gonna put these on our flat top.

This would be similar to what someone would have at home if they're doing the Blackstone.

(sausages sizzling) I generally like to cook.

Since these haven't been pre-cooked I do like to cook 'em on low.

So even if I'm gonna grill these, or if I'm gonna pan-fry 'em, I like to do low heat, just that way it has a chance to cook the whole way through.

And if it's too hot then the casings will wanna split.

(sausages sizzling) We're gonna cook these up, and then we're gonna give 'em a try and make sure it turned out good.

(sausages sizzling) These look pretty good.

They got a nice brown color on 'em.

Let's pull 'em off the grill and give 'em a try.

(sausages sizzling) Well, here we go, dad.

I think these turned out pretty good.

Let's try a bite of 'em.

- All right, we'll get her a whirl.

Oh baby.

Wow.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, that turned out awesome.

(cheerful music) Give her a taste on it.

Hold that again.

Oh man.

That's awesome.

(cheerful music) - I'm a son of a butcher.

- That's right.

(both laughing) (cheerful music) That's all, folks.

(laughing) (cheerful music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program was provided in part by: The RE Synergy Foundation, Content for the Sustainable World.

G&C Foods, quality at every turn.

Pittsburgh Spice and Seasoning Company, making life taste better.

And viewers like you.