A chicken leg consists of a chicken’s thigh and drumstick, attached together. Chicken legs are great for grill-roasting, pan-roasting, and hot-smoking, because their dark, meaty flesh retains moisture and flavor when subjected to direct and convection heat.
In some areas it’s difficult to source whole chicken legs. In their place, supermarkets sometimes offer chicken leg quarters. This cut comprises not only the thigh and drumstick, but also part of the backbone and pelvic bone. Leg quarters can be left intact for grill-roasting, but doing so will slightly increase the cooking time. Moreover, the additional bone structure makes this cut more difficult to eat and leaves behind a lot more bone detritus on the plate. If you can find only leg quarters in your store, here’s how to fabricate them into legs.
Place the leg quarter on your cutting board, skin-side-down. Feel with your fingers to find the thigh bone, and follow the bone out to where the thigh bone connects with the pelvic bone. By pressing there, you’ll locate the hip joint. Using a flexible boning knife, start at the hip joint and cut forward between the lower pelvic bone and the flesh. Then, cut backward between the upper pelvic bone and flesh. Finally, cut through the hip joint to sever the pelvic structure and backbone from the leg.
