Why make curries etc out of precooked chicken?

valk_scot

purpleivy wrote: »

I do sometimes make quite a bit out of a chicken, but I do wonder about the nutritional value of each meal if it's stretched too thinly.!

I wonder about this myself. An adult portion of chicken is estimated as 3-4 oz of actual meat when it comes to counting up nutritional requirements, which is about half a breast of a normal sized chicken. Obviously people can and do often eat a lot more than this but when I read about people making a chicken dish for two out of two wings, I really do hope they're treating the chicken element as a flavouring rather than the main nutritional part of the meal.

rachbc

I save about half a chicken from a roast - and use it to make maybe 1 days worth of sarneis and either a pie or jambalaya/ fried rice. For the rice dishes the chiken is added near the end to heat through and fo the pie make a sauce with any leftover gravy, some veg for flavour, herbs and little cream and reheat under a mash or pastry top - never ever been dry yet. I don't use cooked chiken for a curry as I prefer that made with raw.

Can't understand why your family won't eat sarnies made with cooked chicken - what otehr sort of chicken would you do for sarnies normally?

Gigervamp

Another thing to consider, is that meat cooked on the bone tastes better. If you're using the thighs in a chicken pie for example and using raw chicken, it won't have the same flavour as pre-roasted chicken.

Bitsy_Beans

triticale wrote: »

I have to say I don't like curries made with previously cooked meat. Not just the dryness, but it also tastes 'wrong' to me (roast chicken especially has a very distinctive flavour)

Pies, stews and soups are fine though.

I use the "dark" meat for things like curries etc and don't have any problems with dryness......

I bung my chicken in my le crueset pot, put the lid on and cook - nice and easy and tastes OK to me

Penny has hit the nail on the head, making a curry out of cooked chicken is a process to use up left overs. No one is cooking a whole chicken with the sole purpose of making a curry. I certainly don't - it's normally for Sunday lunch and then the left over chicken get frozen for other meals. I haven't got the skills to be jointing my own whole chicken and TBH I CBA Meat for a curry etc then gets cooked in the SC altogether which is probably cheaper to use than re-heating on the hob.

yumyums

bigmuffins wrote: »

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:

I see your point bigmuffins. If I want to make curries, casseroles etc I will buy a whole chicken and cut it up (as it's much cheaper) and use the pieces to make a few meals.
If I do fancy a roast I'll do the whole chicken and use the leftovers to make sandwich fillers (chicken, mayo & spring onion is yummy, as is chicken, mayo and bacon!) I also find that leftover roasted chicken is nice in pies.
The best sandwich filler I ever made was using leftover jerk chicken and mayo. Mmmmm

tattycath

I like to cook a whole chicken in the slow cooker too, then use some of the left overs for sandwiches and/or curry and with the carcass-either my husband makes a broth or i boil it up with onions etc for stock. Sometimes my Husband boils up the neck and offal for stock-waste not want not!!

patchwork_cat

I too don't agree with rubber chicken and have voiced my concerns before about the protein content when someone gets 18 meals out of a chicken!!! I do however think that with a medium sized chicken, which we buy, you can get 8 adult meals - however I will add something extra to the second meal like eg bacon (although not in a curry!!) I hate slow cooked whole chicken, though!

mummysaver

It all comes down to personal preferences I guess! I roast chicken and then use the leftovers in pies, curries, stir fries, pasta dishes, sarnies, etc, not all from one chicken, my stretching skills and my kids appetites wouldn't allow for that! However I also joint chickens and use the various portions for appropriate dishes, chicken thighs wrapped in bacon with mozzarella is a fave here, and obviously that wouldn't work with a precooked chicken, similarly chicken wings are saved then cooked in a sticky chinese style sauce or bbq sauce as a part of nibbley sort of meal, chicken breasts can be used in anything, and chicken drumsticks are often bbq'd in the summer, I also often use chicken legs for a quick roast - just the right amount to fill the kids up and no fighting over who has got the most skin

Guess I should add that I can't really comment on the taste myself, I'm veggie, but I don't have many complaints!

rinabean

It's impossible to be protein deficient if you're eating enough food! Worry about your vitamins and minerals, sure, but worrying about protein intake is total nonsense. If you were protein deficient you'd notice, it is not a nice condition to be in at all! It's not one of those nasty silent things that creeps up on you and kills you slowly. It's more like scurvy, which again is impossible to get nowadays in this country as long as you're eating a reasonable diet, so don't fret about that

Rickets is something that's coming back, though! Make sure you are having enough vitamin D (and if you're not either eating oily fish very often, or fair-skinned and with unprotected skin in the summer sun, you're not and you need to supplement!). That really is something to worry about. Sorry that this is slightly off-topic, but I find the resurgence of rickets really worrying, and it really is not something that we should risk for the sake of economising, so I talk about it wherever I can shoehorn it into the conversation

patchwork_cat

rinabean wrote: »

It's impossible to be protein deficient if you're eating enough food!

Can you back up this claim? Do not make unsubstantiated statements, merely to quote a hobby horse that is totally irrelevant to the discussion.

Protein is essential for such diverse needs as cell replacement to serotonin synthesis. If you do not take in all the amino acids you will know about it.

Incidentally with your concern over vitamin D a symptom of protein deficiency is light skin that burns easily in the sun!

You need about 0.8g of protein per Kg body weight and it is important to note that that is NOT 0.8g meat, but the protein portion of the meat.