There is no better cooking video on the Internet than Pepin's chicken deboning video. I can debone a chicken in under a minute because of it. It changed my life.
I still have a _lot_ to learn about cooking.
A simple knife skills course for instance taught me some techniques in a couple of minutes that I hadn't figured out on my own in years that dramatically improved my efficiency.
Turned out pretty good! I know my way around a whole chicken (I cut up whole chickens about once every week or two), so deboning wasn't so bad. The legs took too long; you gotta scrape with conviction! I also need to sharpen my paring knife.
I went with a spinach, mushroom, and crouton stuffing like Pépin. Also made a wine cream sauce. Quite good. Threw mirepoix in the pan while the chicken rested, deglazed with white wine, added some stock, strained into a sauce pan, added roux, then finished with cream.
Yes. I like to cook.
All I do is pat the chicken dry with a paper towel. I also skip the bit about removing the sinew from the tenderloin, because it mangles the tenderloin (which is fine if you're doing a galantine but less so if your kids want to eat a chicken tenderloin).
On the other hand, and as someone who has spent a year or two getting his kids to get over the idea of touching raw meat: if you're grossed out by raw meat, you're handicapped if you want to do meat cookery. If you're going to eat meat --- and I eat a lot of meat --- I think an ethical bare minimum is not to allow yourself to be grossed out by it in its natural state. It's tough to get over skeeviness, but you can't cook well if you're skeeved out by your products, and I generally think you owe it to the universe to cook animals carefully. But I'm weird that way.
So anyways I would just say try to get over any concern about touching raw chicken.
Also when you get good at it you feel like The Predator. Try it on a goose when you get good. It's like turning a small person inside out. >:)
It is a really wonderful video, and extremely effective teaching.
It's awesome. When you get fast, you feel like The Predator when you do it.
(I can't roll and tie a gallotine in a minute!)
I mainly cook for me and my girlfriend, but I usually buy two chickens at a time because I can yield four breasts, four quarters, and ~2 quarts of stock (depending). I typically sous vide the breasts and serve over a salad, roast the quarters, and save the breast skin for this or that (schmaltz, cracklins, etc...). The boss move is roast the quarters over fingerlings potatoes with lemon juice, olive oil, schmaltz, herb, and stock.
That's $16 for meat for 3-5 meals.
I only get the 2 meals (and some stock), but then, teenagers.