Leftover chicken recipes please

competitionscafe

sarah1 wrote:

Hi we buy a tesco chicken every week, we have the chicken breast that night while it is still hot, and then make a few sandwiches for work the next day and that's it. I pick the carcas for the dogs but it seems such as waste and was looking for ideas of how you all use the leftovers up.
Thanks all.

Try this article and recipes from the independent:

Pecking order.
Do you make the most of your bird? Mark Hix reveals how to cook four delicious meals from just one chicken......
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/food_and_drink/features/article14638.ece

Must say though that a chicken which costs £2.49 is likely to have led a rather miserable, short and cramped life and been fed on who knows what. Once you take away the supermarkets profit that doesn't leave the producer much to spend on raising the chook. I know you may balk at paying 8, 9 or 10 quid for a chicken but you can certainly 'taste the difference' (and tuck in knowing that the chicken has led some sort of half decent life) and as the article shows, you can stretch 1 chicken to 4 meals. Personally I would rather eat chicken once a month and get a really good one rather than have it every week and buy a 'value' one. I appreciate that you have to eat something each day though and that value may be all that your budget allows, so I am not criticising your choice, just pointing out the welfare issue.

More info on chickens:
http://www.ciwf.org.uk/campaigns/primary_campaigns/broiler.html

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tootles_2

using chicken for sandwiches, try it this way.....

Dice a small sweet onion, dice the chicken, add a little garlic to taste, bind with a tablespoon or two of mayo and add a small handful of sultana's or chopped dried apricots, the ready to eat ones work well. salt and pepper to taste.......you can then either put it in sandwiches, pitta bread or serve it on its own with a nice big green salad..... yummy....... I have also done it with chopped almonds in, but beware if anyone has a nut allergy.........

Maisie

Same as above but leave out the garlic. Instead mix curry paste or powder(only a little- to taste) with the mayo and add chopped apricots or chopped pineappple chunks with cut up chicken. A kind of coronation chicken.

Xbigman

How much meat do you actually get off of a chicken these days? I buy the Tesco healthy living frozen chicken breasts, 500g for £2.48. All skinless breast so no messy fingers picking off bits.

Talking recipes, I had one bit of breast, half a tin of tuna (in brine) and some bits of veg left over last weekend. Boiled it all up together, drained off the water and dumped it on the plate. Very nice.
Regards



X

megsykins

Xbigman wrote:

How much meat do you actually get off of a chicken these days? I buy the Tesco healthy living frozen chicken breasts, 500g for £2.48. All skinless breast so no messy fingers picking off bits.

Being a student and cooking for one, I always automatically picked up breasts (and then wrapped them singly before freezing so didn't stick together) but have only just realised how much money I was wasting! Now buying for two, i'm not so limited and can get a big chicken! The cost of a pack of 3/4 breasts and a whole chicken was about the same when I looked, and you get way more from a chicken.

As OH is a chef, he's always coming up with ingenius things to do with leftovers but usually, he immeadiatly chops the chickens into breast, thigh, drummer, etc and we freeze as portioned so not much 'scraps'. If we buy a ready cooked though, the leftovers get used for sarnies (if they've not been totally picked at ) and then bones are used for stock, if not by us, at his restaurant.

Edited to add, if you have a mincer, put scraps in this? According to OH, this is why ready-bought breasts are so much smaller than it you cut it off a whole chicken, cos manufacturers cut off a bit from every breast (not enough to notice) and use it for mince.

youngmum_2

I'm definately going to buy a chicken this week and try and eek out 3 meals from the many suggestions.

Being quite a novice cook, I have what may seem a silly question - I think I'll try and make chicken and rice soup with the carcass. What kind of rice is it that I use?

TIA peeps

squeaky

I expect it'll be any long grain rice you have

maryb

Maisie wrote:

Same as above but leave out the garlic. Instead mix curry paste or powder(only a little- to taste) with the mayo and add chopped apricots or chopped pineappple chunks with cut up chicken. A kind of coronation chicken.

this is also really good with a bit of mango chutney instead of chopped apricots

Linda32

Hello all, after reading on here about a whole chicken being best value than chicken breasts. We decided to buy a whole chicken, with a view to having some as roast and the rest with salad the next day.

I'm abit of a fuss pot about food safety and as yet can't possibly get my head around freezing some of it and re-heating

I know about the skewer test and juices running clear. etc.

We had the breast meat and when I came to pull the other bits apart to store in the fridge once completely cold.
There were some red stringy bits at about where the leg joins the hip :eek: and some of the juices in the bottom of the pan were reddish.

Well I lost my nerve and the whole lot went in the bin :eek:

It was 1.3kg and was cooked for 1hr.50mins at gas mark 6

The instructions were for 1.1/2 hours but this didn't seem long enough if you stick to the 25 mins per 500g rule plus 20 minutes.

Need I have worried, wasn't it long enough, has anyone worked out how to turn a chicken over half way through?

Or better to be save than sorry and cook for longer next time

MrsTinks

First off then chickens have what is known as white meat AND dark meat This would be the legs and thighs mainly They can look "reddish" or light brown it's fine and normal You could if you want get one of them stands to put your chicken on that goes inside and the chicken ends up stood up in the oven (funny if you don't tell the OH and he peeks in the oven :rotfl:) and will cook evenly from all sides.

I would have said that chances are the chicken was well cooked and you wouldn't have needed to throw it away (worst case you could have chucked it all in a slow cooker and let it simmer for hours that should have removed all chance of anything being alive )

Oh and the red stringy bits are normal too