Key Equipment

We use this knife for everything from chopping an onion to mincing herbs to butchering a chicken. This one knife, with its pointed tip and slightly curved blade, will handle 90 percent of your kitchen cutting work.

The super-sharp, thin, relatively flexible, and long blade of a boning knife allows the cook to deftly get around the intricate areas of bones and joints.

This knife (also called a carving knife) is specially designed to cut neatly through meat's muscle fibers and connective tissues. No other knife can cut through cooked meat with such precision in a single stroke. Roasted chicken breasts and turkey breasts would be torn to shambles without this knife.

A good pair of kitchen shears will do heavy duty in the kitchen. We use them for everything from cutting kitchen twine to trimming fat from chicken breasts, and they are indispensable for butterflying a chicken.

Cutting chicken can be dangerous if the knives are dull. A hand-held or electric knife sharpener will help keep the blades razor-sharp, which means that meat will cut cleanly, and evenly.

There are many types of cutting boards available on the market, but for cutting meat and poultry, we prefer to use a plastic board of the largest possible size that will fit in our dishwasher. You can a wooden board but you will need to wash well in hot, soapy water.

This piece of equipment is essential for portioning out the correct weight of chicken for a recipe. A scale is also helpful for labeling chicken for storage. We recommend buying a digital scale with a high capacity (at least 10 pounds) and large platform.

There are many kinds available—cotton, linen, or even newer silicone food ties. In this case, simple is best. We prefer cotton twine, which is inexpensive, won’t slip as you tie it, and doesn’t fray, break, or singe during cooking.

Plastic wrap is essential for prepping chicken. We use plastic wrap to cover the surface of our scale when portioning raw chicken, and to cover breast meat during pounding.

A meat pounder is necessary for pounding chicken cutlets into a thickness that will cook quickly. Our favorite meat pounder is a basic model with a vertical handle.

Gauging the internal temperature is the only reliable way to determine doneness. Use an instant-read thermometer and insert the probe into the both the chicken breasts and thighs at their thickest points. Chicken breasts should be cooked to 160 degrees, while the dark meat should be cooked to 175 degrees.

An angled V-rack, set inside a roasting pan, is often used to cradle a whole chicken. Because hot air circulates freely around the roast, the meat cooks evenly. And because the roast is not sitting in any juices that may drip down into the roasting pan, the exterior remains crisp.