KITCHEN NOTEBOOK

No Bones About It

-RELATED RECIPE Turkey Breast Stuffed with Matzo and Fennel

The recipe for turkey stuffed with matzo in our Matzo Mania feature (see links at right) calls for a boned, skinned turkey breast, which can sometimes be hard to find at the supermarket, where boneless skinless chicken breasts still rule the roost.

A very sharp thin-bladed knife is essential for boning a turkey. Put the turkey on a cutting board and turn it so the neck (wider) end is away from you.

(1) Starting at the neck end, make an incision through the skin along the length of the breastbone, exposing the bone.

(2) Now begin cutting one breast half free from bone (we started on the left): Use short, shallow knife strokes along the left side of the breastbone to separate the meat, allowing the bone to act as a guide (the blade should be scraping against it in a downward motion) and pulling the meat away as you cut.

(3) As you progress, you'll need to cut the meat free from the left side of the wishbone, which you'll feel with your knife at the neck end. The same shallow-cutting principle applies here, too. You need to get as close to the bone as possible and cut through the thick white tendon that is attached to the tender (the partially loose strip of meat running along the underside of the breast half). Continue cutting past the breastbone and along the rib cage (the job gets easier as you go along because most of the breast half will flap open like a book) until you can free the lobe completely.

Keeping the breast half skin side down, pull off the tender and save it for another use. Trim off any cartilage or blood vessels, then turn the breast over. Pull the skin away from the meat, cutting the fascia (the transparent stretchy tissue that connects the skin to the flesh) with the tip of your knife as you go.

Depending on whether you're right- or left-handed, you may want to turn the bird around, neck end toward you, before starting on the other breast half.