Why make curries etc out of precooked chicken?

bigmuffins

Hi!

Pardon me for asking but I am curious as to why so many people cook a whole chicken, eat part of it and then recook the rest as curries or pies or ...?
Why not just cook the amount you need for the meal? Surely the curry/pie whatever would taste better if made from scratch rather than reheated? Doesn't it make the meat all tough and dry?

Also you aren't saving on the electricity/gas used in cooking cos you are cooking it twice? Or saving on the time either as you have to strip and recook?
We buy whole chickens and either get it cut up or do it ourselves and then cook from fresh each time. I have never made a curry or pie with precooked meat tbh as we never have much leftover from a roast! :drool:

On the odd occasion we have some leftovers, I tried a pasta sauce but the meat seemed to be quite dry and not very tasty?
Am I missing something?
:think:

rinabean

I can't answer from personal experience as I don't eat meat, but I imagine you simply add the meat later in the recipe than you would have if it were from raw. This is the principle I apply when recooking veg, only the problem there is it turning to mush, obviously

Sublime_2

I like to stretch my meat. I cook my chicken whole in the slow cooker. We will have the legs, and some breast with veg, etc for one meal. The thighs, and remaining veg are put aside to use in a curry, etc. While the carcass, scraps of meat, skin etc are boiled up for stock, to make soup. Which can last a few days.

kitschy

Yup - only takes a minute to reheat the meat, thus massively reducing the cooking time required. I personally roast a whole bird, have a roast, cold meat for sandwiches, whizz up a curry/pasta dish with left-overs, then shred the dregs for soup and use the carcass to make stock (which I then freeze). There are lots of threads about "rubber" chicken (stretching it to do lots of meals) which will give you everything you'd like to know.

Personally, I don't have time to cook from scratch every evening, so prefer to do my big efforts at a weekend, and I prefer the taste of roast chicken to pan fried. I wouldn't put the oven on just to cook a breast for just moi.

Mrs_Arcanum

A whole chicken costs far less per Kg than even just thighs or legs. You get the roasted chicken for Sunday then whatever is left can be used however is needed. Why pay and cook twice or three times for something that can just be warmed through, as this is all cooked chicken needs?

Re cooked chicken is dry. All it needs is to be heated through.

Pink.

Hi bigmuffins,

I can't speak for others but I do it because we enjoy a whole roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings. This costs much less per pound than buying chicken portions, however there is often leftover meat that is worth using up and can be used to produce moneysaving meals for very little cost.

As rinabean mentioned, I don't recook the chicken (as I find it can become stringy and dry) so I add it at the end of cooking the dish so it's reheated rather than cooked a second time.

Pink

BitterAndTwisted

The trickiest part of cooking a curry is messing about with the spices etcetera. With already cooked chicken you just pop it in at the end to heat through. I don't see the problem with being a crafty and thrifty cook, quite frankly. In days of yore people never bought chicken portions: it was a roast on Sunday (if you were lucky, that is. Chicken used to be a once or twice a year luxury when I was a nipper) and then what was left over was used in several different dishes through the week. Like gold-dust it was, so every single molecule was used and savoured. I see that as a Good Thing.

Sublime_2

The other good thing about cooking a whole bird in the slow cooker, is that it remains very moist (especially the thighs), so is fine when reheated in a curry.

cooking-mama

I like to cook a whole chicken,but not reheat the leftovers,tho i will boil up the carcass and chicken wings to make chicken and rice soup,other than that there is usualy only a wee drop meat left for a couple of sandwiches or a leg for 1 cold chicken leg salad lunch the next day.
Altho im not into "rubber" chicken I can understand why some are...altho I admit im amazed when people get meals into double figures from 1 chicken,makes me feel guilty/greedy sometimes that we only get 1 main meal,an odd lunch and soup from ours;)

bigmuffins

Hi Pink and everyone!
Thanks for your replies!

BitterAndTwisted: I am all for being crafty & thrifty, my main point is the taste - when you cook a curry the spices get into the meat and flavour it, if you have precooked meat you can't get the same depth of flavour as the meat is already cooked and is only reheated, just a coating of sauce really? To me this is not seem as if it will be a nice curry as I can't see that the time saved compensates for the lack of flavour?

Pink-winged: We buy whole chickens too as is cheaper but then cut them up to smaller pieces (or ask butcher to do it for us) and freeze in small packs. Then what I do to save time is to make the basic sauce and store in fridge or freezer and then just add the raw chicken to it - cooks quickly and is tasty.

Haven't tried adding precooked meat to the sauce though. The only time was with the pasta sauce and the result was rather dry meat, which no-one liked so I haven't done it again.

I was looking through recipe threads recently and saw the number of rubber chicken ones and wondered if I had missed something useful! Am happy to try timesaving and moneysaving methods but I know my family won't eat rubber tasting chicken! :rotfl:So unless I can get round that it wouldn't be :money:
We love roast chicken dinners too but don't have much in the way of leftovers! I have tried sandwiches with leftover meat on several occasions - with roast veggies, with sweetcorn and salad and mayonnaise (not all in same sarnie! )and while Mum and I ate them quite happily, no-one else touched theirs! I know it wasn't the chicken cos it was all gobbled up pretty quick when hot!

So unless anyone knows where I am going wrong, I am going to have to stick with raw chicken.

Slow cookers - I got a slow cooker after reading about them here and thinking it would save me time , have hot meals ready of an evening while we got on with other things but again the meat didn't taste nice - tasted 'mushy' and boiled ?
I am going to try again and really brown meat first - think the first time maybe I didn't brown enough and added too much liquid.

I have also tried making a stock with the carcass and it tasted of:
cooked chicken, rather than chicken ifyswim, different to the stock
made with raw bones?

Just thought, how do you all roast your chickens? We usually add black pepper, garlic and lemon marinade or sometimes more spicier ones - maybe this is why I haven't got good result?


:cool:

Gotta go now - just realised the time! To quote Arnie: I'll be back!

Sublime_2

For stock, put all the scraps of bones from the legs wings, plus skin (I put most of mine in). Add just enough water to barely cover (otherwise won't taste), with an onion, carrot, and some herbs, and whatever other seasonings you fancy. I usually do my stock in the slow cooker too, so it loses very little flavour.