Rubber Chicken

Skint_Catt

mushroom and chicken risotto YUM!
boil the carcass too to make lots n lots of stock for yummy soups (just learnt this one myself!)

Larumbelle

Everyone has their favourite 'rubber chicken' strategies, this is mine (there are just the two of us, by the way, but leftovers can be frozen). We buy a roughly 1.7k corn fed free-range chook for £7.50, this normally gives us 10 generous portions plus leftovers for sandwiches. We could actually stretch it to more slightly smaller portions if we needed to, and freeze some. We have done that in the past but not having to is a nice little luxury now. Luckily neither me or OH get fed up of good chicken, we have a 'chicken week' one week in every three or four.

Day 1 (usually Sunday): Roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings.
Strip all of the meat from the chicken while its still warm (tends to be easier, I find).
Bung the carcass, some water and some veg if there's any about (usually a carrot and an onion, or leftover veg, or trimmings (eg pea pods) that I have kept and frozen for stock) in the slow cooker overnight for stock.

Day 2: Roast dinner but no trimmings, unless there were any leftovers.
Also Day 2, 3 and 4 OH has a chicken sandwich as part of his packed lunch.

Day 3: Risotto or chicken noodle soup. Both are just variations of stock cooked with chopped up chicken and other bits. There are lots of recipes on this board if you search.

Day 4: 'Takeaway day'. Sticky lemon pepper chicken (my own recipe, I know I've posted it on here somewhere) or HM goujons with potato wedges and veg.

Day 5: The other from risotto or chicken noodle soup.

Skint_Catt

Silver charming you put me to shame. OH and I got one roast and a risotto out of one chook! :eek: Would love to eek it out more but I just find two large appetites finish it off!

gairlochgal

yes risotto and soup are my favourites. For soup I do a copy of the wagamama chicken ramen - a thin broth from the carcass, with lots of ginger, lemon grass and coriander, maybe chilli, and then add in some noodles, chicken, mushrooms, maybe green beans, whatever seems to work. But the key is to play around till you find a broth you really like and then chuck in stuff depending how filling you want it to ne

jackk_2

I usualy get 3 meals from our chicken, i do a roast, a risotto and a spicy chicken lasagne mostly.

Jackie x

Larumbelle

Skint_Catt wrote: »

Silver charming you put me to shame. OH and I got one roast and a risotto out of one chook! :eek: Would love to eek it out more but I just find two large appetites finish it off!

Thankyou! I learnt all of this from people here along the way. I have a few crafty techniques to eke it out.

Firstly, remembering how much a correct portion size is - meat about the size of a pack of playing cards - and sticking to it. You feel a little deprived at first but you quickly get used to it and it becomes the norm. Once I started sticking to proper portion sizes my meat bill shrunk considerably! And when you do have a genuine 'glut' of meat (I have a huge beef joint for £3 that I forgot to slice into portions before freezing it) you feel like you are getting a totally decadent treat!

Second, for some reason if you strip the meat while the chook is still warm, you seem to end up with a lot more meat. And when I say 'strip' I do mean that I pick off all of the edible meat. I could get another three or four portions from my mum's idea of stripping the carcass! And I take the meat off the legs and thighs, otherwise they get considered to be a portion each, when really there's more meat than that on them. Incidentally, I'd swear you get more meat from a free-range chook than a cheapo one.

Three, DO NOT LET OTHER HALF STRIP THE MEAT! Mine 'tastes' a bit from here, a bit from there... two portions gone!

Fourth, cook smart. Trimmings in a roastie do make the meat go further while still giving you the 'big roast' effect. Yorkie puds and stuffing are both good for this, also leftover sausages (but only when they are actually left over. We normally have something leftover for the second roast too. Lots of noodles and veggies in a soup, and you get to use less meat. A few mushrooms in a risotto and you get to use less meat. Salad in a sandwich... of course it does help me that I grow my own veg and have reliably got a lot on hand.

Lastly, I don't know if it's just me, but I do get a weird sense of pride from how far I stretch my chicken and once you have that it's easy to stick to a plan!

jamgirl

we (5 of us) had a roast chicken dinner on friday night, used some left overs yesterday to do chicken fried rice (YUM!) and the remainder will be used today in sandwiches.

CAT££

OOOh can you let me know how you make the chicken and mushroom pie, along with the soup & risotto. Thanks.

boredjellybean

wasn't sure if I should have posted on the stock thread or the risotto thread or even the whole chicken in the slow cooker thread so please forgive me for starting a new one!!

basically I am cooking a chicken in the slow cooker & was wondering if I am right in thinking that the cooking juices would be perfect to use as stock for a risotto?

I am then going to use the meat for lunches & a soup and make a batch of stock with the bones - is this the most OS use ??

many thanks bjb

Larumbelle

I find that the cooking juices can be quite fatty, so strain them first. Personally I use the juices for gravy, then add anything that's left to the stock pot. I always make at least one risotto with the stock!