Chicken - balancing quality with value?

Bargain_Rzl

Hi,

I figured I might make my first attempt at a whole slow-cooked chicken next weekend. Will most likely do it with garlic, onion and maybe lemon, and hope to get a few meals out of it, i.e. on its own with potatoes and veg, plus a couple of risottos, pasta dishes and maybe a curry.

My SC (4.5l Breville/Anthony Worrall Thompson) will fit a medium sized bird, but I'm only cooking for myself so I am expecting to get a LOT of meals out of one chicken! For this reason I want to make sure it actually tastes of something, and isn't just full of fat and water.

On the scale between a £1.99 "value" chook and a £10+ organic free-range job I might get from a farmer's market, can anybody provide any guidance as to what I might buy - and where - that represents a good balance between quality and value? For example, where could I go that would be the best place to spend £5?

Thanks - Rzl x

fostermoss

Hi Bargain Rzl,

I tend to buy my whole chickens from the supermarket which ever one i happen to go in( morrisons, sainsburys, tesco, asda, marks and spencers) and after seeing those recent programs on the quality of the meat available ia lways buy free range chickens and i usually buy a medium one- i rarely spend over £5.50 which i am willing to pay for a decent chicken!

Hope this helps.

Heth_2

I rarely buy whole chickens, but if I was getting one I'd go to the butchers and get a free range one. Have recently been finding that the normal chicken breasts you get in Sainsburies (not the value ones) don't really taste of much, so have pretty much stopped buying meat.

hermit-crab

Free range is really worth the money but then I live alone so can eek a whole chicken out for quite a few meals. If you are feeding a hungry family it might not be so cost effective.

Bargain_Rzl

hermit-crab wrote:

Free range is really worth the money but then I live alone so can eek a whole chicken out for quite a few meals. If you are feeding a hungry family it might not be so cost effective.

As I said in my original post, I am only feeding little me (though I do have a big appetite )

Forgot to mention that I can access (supermarkets) Asda, Co-op, Lidl, Somerfield and a poorly-stocked Tesco; (posh places) Borough Market, Blackheath Farmer's Market; (butchers) some quite dodgy looking places near me and I'm told there's an organic place in Blackheath which I could potentially reach.

I was already assuming that free range was probably worth the money (in both taste and ethics!)

twink

tesco are doing chilled raw chickens 1.5kg for £1.99p made soup with it then i take the meat off the bones and have with sweet and sour or curry sauce etc so that gives me 3 meals from the soup and 4 from the meat am on my own too

Sarahsaver

You can get a live one from a farm and have change for a fiver. Be prepared to wring its neck and pluck and gut it and you will have the cheapest free range hen imagineable!;)
Dad used to drive 'strategically' to bump off the odd pheasant, FREE range indeed!

Debt_Free_Chick

Sarahsaver wrote:

You can get a live one from a farm and have change for a fiver. Be prepared to wring its neck and pluck and gut it and you will have the cheapest free range hen imagineable!;)
Dad used to drive 'strategically' to bump off the odd pheasant, FREE range indeed!

I'll second that - my local smallholder sells her cockerels for £3 each!!!!

thriftlady_2

You can get barn reared chickens which can be nearly as well produced as free-range or as badly produced as battery chickens.My butcher offers these for about £6 I think.He has photographs of the farm which produces them.They also supply his free-range and organic birds.The only difference apparently between these barn-reared and free-range birds is that the doors to the shed are left open for the free-range ones.

My butcher also sells his free-range birds for £1.69 a lb if you buy 4 of them for the freezer.They're big birds too,about 5lbs,so about £8 a bird-not bad for free-range.

Maybe your local butcher does something similar?

mummysaver

Hi, I bought a free range medium chicken in my local tiny Tesco today, it was reduced and the farm shop had run out of chicken, so it seemed like a bit of a bargain! Planning to try it in the slow cooker on Sunday, I'm new to this slow cooker lark so wish me luck!