Butchering chicken

When poultry producers butcher chickens into quarters they typically split the bird right down the middle of the back and the cut the breast/wing portion from the leg/thigh portion. This basically renders a significant portion of the leg/thigh quarter inedible. It is inedible, however, it is not unusable. So I will butcher these leg/thighs and show you what I mean.

Here is a whole leg and thigh. My thumb is in roughly the area where the thigh bone is attached to the back.

And here is the quarter broken down into leg, thigh, and the back pieces.

Here is the entire bag of chicken broken down. You will notice that the three piles are about the same size. The pile on the left is these back pieces that are basically inedible. If I had simply cooked these quarters without breaking them down then I would have wasted a third of this 10lb bag of chicken. Since I have removed the back pieces now I can use them for something else. These back pieces are still high in protein and still usable. So, I am going to bag and freeze these back pieces and next week I can make stock from them. The legs and thighs will be used this week for roasted, rotisserie, and fried chicken dishes.