Rubber Chicken

Jay-Jay_4

Basic/rough rules for roast chicken is to cook it on a medium/high (about 180deg but for a fan over 170deg) heat for 'about' an hour and a half. I turn my tin halfway to ensure that's it's evenly browned. I don't use any butter, foil, oil etc, just take it out of the packet, rinse it, pat it dry with kitchen roll and whack it in the oven (on a trivet over a roasting tin) until it's done.

It's done when A) you pull the leg and it 'gives'..... if it feels 'tight' it's not cooked enough and when you pull the leg, look at the gap between the leg and the body the juice must be a golden colour, not pink at all.

It's better to be overcooked than undercooked as even an overcooked dry chicken tastes ok with plenty of gravy on.

There should be PLENTY of breastmeat for two people and, depending on the size of the chicken, some extra. Then take off the rest of the meat before the chicken completely cools (it's easier) and pop it in the fridge until you've decided what you want to make out of it.

If I wanted to get two meals out of it I would strip the chicken and serve a mixture of breast and thigh meat for dinner, then keep a mixture of breast, thigh and leg for a pie.

The carcass san then be used for stock or the base for a soup....but I never get that far lol!!!

culpepper

I use the legs thighs and a slice of breast each for the roast(4 of us) then rest of breast can be strips for a pizza or kebab.The rest of the meat and stock can be a stew or meat for pasta or a pie with a white sauce and the stock.I usually freeze the carcass until I have 4 and then boil them up for soup.

Noozan

I always take the wings off our chickens - cut the tips off and divide each wing into two pieces through the joint. I freeze these until I have enough to make one of my "wing" recipes. Cola wings, chilli wings, fragrant wings or mum's old style wings

I don't do anything special to the chicken, just rinse, dry and roast on trivet for an hour at 220. I only buy organic free range chicken so it doesn't need any extra flavourings as it tastes like chicken should; to justify the price, I have to make it stretch for ages, lol.

We usually have one breast between us for the roast chicken meal. Second breast is shredded for sandwich or tortilla filling - chicken and sweetcorn mayo, coronation chicken, fajhitas (sp) etc

One leg and thigh for curry and the other leg and thigh for stir fry surprise (the surprise element depends on what else I have lurking around) or chicken type casserole with s-h-i-t-a-k-e mushrooms and tree fungus. This is my fave!

The carcass is then made into stock along with any root veg and herbs from garden. When the stock is done, I pick over the bones as I usually get a fair amount of meat from it. The meat, along with the stock is either used for soup or used to cook a rissoto.

Penny-Pincher!!

Hi Greenlogo

I roasted a small chicken yesterday and used the breast and bit of thigh with spuds and veg last night. Then today for lunch used the rest (thigh and wing meat) did me and DD chicken in cream of mush soup with mash and veg, and OH had loads of pasta with a tin of chopped toms over top, some of chicken and grated cheese on top cooked in oven :rolleyes: He has enough for later too, but he's just a pig and he had bread and butter with it :eek: lol. So a small chicken has fed 3 of us 2 meals each

The dishes I do to stretch a chicken are normally: chicken pie as above but with pastry, chicken pasta as above, chicken and soup as above, chicken crumble, chicken curry, chicken lasagna, carbonara with chicken-sweetcorn and mayo with chilli powder, chicken covered in breadcrumbs with chips. Also dont forget the good old chicken sarnie....chicken, lettuce, red onion, beetroot and mayo...yummy.

Theres probably lots more.

When I roast me chicken I always put a little butter on skin with P&S, cover with foil but away from the skin and normally cook on low heat for a couple of hours. Its never dry. My dd would live on chicken if she could-her fav is a full chicken roast with tons and I mean tons of roast pots :eek:

PP
xx

greenlogo

thank you all - there are some brilliant ideas there and I'm getting quite excited at the prospect of seeing how far I can make my chicken go (is that very sad...? )

and PP - I'm with your DD on that one, roast chicken and lots of roasties (with nice crunchy edges) are what I always used to ask for when I came home from uni

researcher

One of the best things about an organic chicken is the stock you can make from the bones afterwards. Keep everything - all the bones and any scraps of skin, but into a saucepan and cover with water - if you have chuck in an onion, carrot, garlic, celery, parsley, bay salt, pepper (any combination will do, but don't worry if you haven't any). Bring to the boil, turn down to a gentle simmer and keep simmering for at least 2 hours ( I often leave up to 4 hours). Make sure the water doesn't boil dry - add more boiling water from the kettle if necessary. Taste for seasoning. When finished drain into a bowl, refrigerate overnight - all the fat will rise to the surface, and the stock will set like jelly. Scrape off the fat and throw away.

Use the stock for fabulous soups or it's brilliant for risotto (with some of the leftover chicken). If you don't use within 4 days freeze.

Get into making stocks - they are the difference between food tasting good or fantastic.

culpepper

you dont have to throw the fat away,you can keep it in a covered container in the fridge and the next time you have roast potatoes you can use the lovely chickeny flavoured fat to roast them in.

researcher

And wait until you get to roasting a goose - roast potatos (and chicken come to think about it) taste wonderful roasted in goose fat.:drool: :drool:

Noozan

researcher wrote:

And wait until you get to roasting a goose - roast potatos (and chicken come to think about it) taste wonderful roasted in goose fat.:drool: :drool:

I had my dinner about an hour ago but the thought of potatoes roasted in goose fat is making me drool!

arkonite_babe

I wish our lot could stretch a chicken! It lasts me one meal and I get the carcass for stock. No way could I ever get 3 or 4 meals from 1 chicken, that would be a miracle