All truss, no strings attached

April 8, 2025 5:19 PM

In both Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook and his later Appetites, co-written with Laurie Woolever, he describes a string-free method of trussing a chicken. His directions are stupefyingly unclear in both books. Neither book has a photo of this method. Help me decipher where to poke some holes.

Listen, I am stupefied as to how this recipe--which is pretty much identical, down to the unclear direction, in both books--ever made it through recipe testing across two entire cookbooks. Yet, somehow, it did.

My guess as a cookbook-adjacent food writer and experienced home cook is that all the testers actually knew how to use the string-trussing method, so they just did that instead. My evidence for this is that in Appetites, there are photos of the bird before cooking, but it is string-trussed.

Every blog post I've seen dating back to the book's publication in 2004(!) also either doesn't show the bird, or instead describes trussing it with string. One validating blog post actually talks about the indecipherable directions.

Here's Bourdain's text about the shortcut: Now, take a paring knife and just below the end of the chicken’s legs (approximately below where your heels would be), poke a small hole on each side, and tuck the leg carefully inside, pinioning the legs in a position approximately what you just did on the floor. Try not to tear the skin, okay?

Which skin is being poked?

Heels are attached to legs, last time I checked, so are the pokes in the drumstick skin at the bottom of each leg (where the heel would be)? If yes, wouldn't you have to tuck the *opposite* leg joint into each hole? (If you did it to the same leg, it would be equivalent to pulling the bottom of your pant leg over your heel.)

Is it the skin on the body of the bird itself, down near the cavity? If yes, that makes some sense, but some birds don't have a lot of extra skin down there to use. Are we poking that hole on each side, then sort of pushing up on the drumstick, forcing it into the hole, and using the tension to hold it against the body?

Or is it something else completely?

I'd bet it's my second guess. That's the only one that makes any sense to me, but I can't find anyone who has used his method and posted a photo online. I don't want to use string, and I also want to do this as intended.

posted by yellowcandy to Food & Drink (7 answers total)

Best answer: There's a picture of it here, in the photobox feature underneath the phrase "Silence of the lambs sort of way", about the third image.
posted by the Real Dan at 5:33 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Here's a video of the technique.
posted by ssg at 5:48 PM on April 8 [6 favorites]

Best answer: I'm gonna fix the Real Dan's link; he linked to search results but here is the specific recipe. Then, as you say, navigate to the third image in the slideshow.
posted by Sunburnt at 5:50 PM on April 8 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: @Sunburnt, @the Real Dan and @ssg: Weirdly, I think those all show a variation on what he describes. It looks like a cross between my second guess and my first one (with the opposite leg inserted into the hole).

I say that because, when you read this exercise he proposes before telling you how to do it, he doesn't mention crossing your knees. I think his method keeps the same-sidedness of the legs somehow.

Okay...now, I'm not going to try and explain how to truss a chicken with twine—as much fun as that is. Here's a shortcut instead. First: Lie on your back on the floor, put your knees together, and draw them both up to your chest with your arms. Press them against your chest. You should look pretty funny down there—but that's exactly the position I want you to put your chicken in. Knees up, ass out.
Undignified, but effective.

Regardless, thank you for helping me see which skin to poke!
posted by yellowcandy at 6:42 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I don't have any example photos, but I have absolutely seen this done in the way he describes, and it is your second guess. The key is in the "knees up, ass out" position he describes - if you do that, see where your own heels would hit, kind of at the bottom of your butt - that's where you need to make the holes, then pull the legs back and shove them in, holding them with tension exactly as you describe. Good luck!
posted by okayokayigive at 6:29 AM on April 9 [5 favorites]

This is pretty common for supermarket rotisserie chicken. Some places use twine and some self-truss with the chicken skin. It might help to look at the grocery store and see if you can see a live example.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:14 AM on April 9

Mod note: Two comments deleted, please make sure your comment answers the question being asked and please avoid making fun of a person's drugs issues.
posted by loup (staff) at 10:31 AM on April 9 [3 favorites]