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Switched from breaking down whole chickens with a cleaver to a boning knife last spring
A guy named Ray at the Halsted market showed me his way back in April. Said the cleaver was crushing the breast meat and costing me yield. Took me about two weeks to get used to the boning knife but now I get cleaner cuts and maybe a quarter pound more per bird. Anyone else made this switch, or do you still swear by the cleaver for poultry?
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matthewgonzalez1mo ago
Did you ever read that thing from the USDA about how much meat gets left on the bone depending on your tool? I saw a breakdown a while back and it said crushing and tearing can waste way more than people think. My uncle ran a butcher counter for years and he always said a sharp boning knife beats a cleaver on birds every time, but he still kept the cleaver around for splitting. The part that got me was how much the crushing thing matters on the breast, since that's where your money is. Two weeks sounds about right to retrain your hand too.
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