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Two halves make a whole

By Contributed

Dec 23, 2025

With Christmas upon us, many of us are thinking about a traditional roast dinner. Here, STEVE BAIN shows us how to prepare two half-chickens from one frame.

The thing with creating two ‘half chickens’ from a complete bird frame is that there are two items to remove if you desire that both halves are pretty much identical.

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In this case, the two very similar halves of chicken mean that diners know what to expect when working their knife and fork around the offering at the dinner table.

With chicken, similar halves can be created by removing the keel bone/sternum and the backbone/spine. You will also remove the ‘tail’ section (aka the parson’s nose). I prefer to remove the keel bone first.

Step1: Start with the chicken breast facing towards you/upwards. You can do this butchery process with just a typical boning knife, or you can use a few extra tools such as a cleaver and a pair of scissors or kitchen shears. The cleaver is handy because rather than swinging it, you can place the edge in location and thump the back of the cleaver with the palm of your hand or the bottom of your clenched fist.

Step 2: The first cutting step is to run the boning knife down one side of the keel.

Step 3: The second cutting step is to run the edge of your boning knife down the other side of the keel. You can see in the photo that the keel-bone/sternum is now exposed — we now want to expose it a little more to make it easier to cut around it to cut it out.

Step 4: Next cut deeper on each side of the keel.

Step 5: Fully expose the keel where the rib bones meet. The cuts to do this are very much like filleting a fish.

Step 6: With your scissors or shears (you can also use your knife), cut through the rib bones under the keel bone.

Step 7: Again with your scissors or shears (you can also use your knife), cut through the rib bones on the other side under the keel bone.

Step 8: Keep cutting under the keel bone until you get all the way down to the end and you can lift the keel/sternum section upwards.

Step 9: Another view of 'cutting the keel bone away'.

Step 10: Cut all the way down to the wishbone, then cut either side of the wishbone, before bending the cut-out section outwards and away from the frame.

Step 11: With the keel to wishbone section bent all the way back, cut the keel to wishbone section away from the frame to separate it from the rest of the chicken.

Step 12: Now flip the bird over so you can work on removing its backbone.

Step 13: Cleaver one side of the backbone, all the way through.

Step 14: You now have two pieces and the final remaining cut is to trim the backbone away.

Step16: Again, using the cleaver, chop the entire spine/backbone away from the piece that it remained attached to after the first of the work with the cleaver. Here you have the backbone completely detached. You have also removed the tail piece.