Old Style tips- Chicken and Gammon

shell_girl

Hello all!

I'm new to the OS board- I'm on a visit from DFW. I must say it's very nice here! Please feel free to move my post if I've put it in the wrong place ...

I've started going a bit more OS lately on my food shop- for health and wealth reasons. OH says we've never eaten so well, and I'm really enjoying myself seeing how far I can stretch my budget and my food.

One thing I'm doing is making big batches of soup at the weekend from my leftover veg and freezing it. My local Morrissons does a gammon shank for £1.30, and so I've been branching out a bit and putting one of these in a soup. I'm soaking it for around two hours and then boiling it for about two- but I still find that the meat is a bit chewy and that I'm not ending up with as much 'usable' meat as the size of the shank would suggest. I'm probably going wrong somewhere really obvious, but has anyone got any tips on getting the best out of this type of cut? I don't have a slow cookier (yet!).

On a similar topic- yesterdays roast chicken will tonight become a chicken pie. I don't want to waste the carcass (spelling?!) if it can be used- does anyone have a link to a tried and trusted recipe for chicken soup from scratch please? And final question (sorry) would I have to make the soup today (chicken was roasted last night) or would I be ok making it tomorrow?

Sorry for long post and all the questions- like I said please feel free to move if I'm cluttering up the wrong place!

Many Thanks,
Shell

thriftlady_2

Hi Shell, welcome to Old Style, you sound like you'll be right at home here Hope you don't mind me answering your question like this:)

shell_girl wrote: »

I'm soaking it for around two hours and then boiling it for about two- but I still find that the meat is a bit chewy and that I'm not ending up with as much 'usable' meat as the size of the shank would suggest. I'm probably going wrong somewhere really obvious, but has anyone got any tips on getting the best out of this type of cut? I don't have a slow cookier (yet!). I'm not exactly sure what a shank is but it sounds like a hock. I would expect to get all the meat off easily after a couple of hours, but the only time I cooked a hock I was disappointed with the amount of meat on it too. So, either this particular cut be it shank or hock isn't very meaty, or the meat itself isn't very good quality

On a similar topic- yesterdays roast chicken will tonight become a chicken pie. I don't want to waste the carcass (spelling?!) if it can be used- does anyone have a link to a tried and trusted recipe for chicken soup from scratch please? First you can just make stock with it and freeze the stock to use in soup later, but if you want a soup recipe try this And final question (sorry) would I have to make the soup today (chicken was roasted last night) or would I be ok making it tomorrow? You'll be fine waiting till tomorrow, but I wouldn't wait any longer than that. You could always freeze the carcase(OED says carcase and carcass btw !). I'd be lost without my tubs of hm chicken stock, oh and don't forget to save the water from boiling your ham it makes a fab base for soups especially dried pea and other pulses.You can freeze that too.

TOTTY

IT IS BEST TO COOK THE SHANK IN A SLOW COOKER SO IT WOULD BE A GOOD INVESTMENT AS YOU CAN MAKE YOUR SOUPS IN IT TOO SO YOU WOULD DEFINITELY USE IT. YOU CAN GET THEM FOR UNDER £20 IN ARGOS SO MAYBE SOMEONE CAN GET YOU ONE FOR XMAS.
I USE MINE A LOT AND WOULDN'T BE WITHOUT IT.
I AGREE YOU CAN FREEZE THE CHICKEN CARCASS THAT'S WHAT I DO UNTIL I HAVE TIME TO USE IT. YOU COULD ALWAYS COOK YOUR CHICKEN CARCASS IN THE GAMMON STOCK THAT MIGHT BE GOOD!

M.E.

The chicken carcass will last in the fridge for a couple of days. During that time save the vegetable peelings, mushroom stalks, etc so that these can go into the stock.
When ready put the carcass ( I squash my down a bit with a wooden spoon) into a large pan or slow cooker or pressure cooker. Add the peelings. Pour on a kettle full of water and simmer/cook slowly for at least two hours.
I then double strain. Firstly I pour the contents through a colander into another large bowl/pan. I discard the bones etc. Then I strain the stock through a much finer sieve into a large pyrex bowl. Cover, cool and put in the fridge.
I use it to make soup and also chicken risotto.

Last week we had a hot chicken from the deli counter (reduced to 62p !)
I let it cool, stripped off the meat and had cold chicken in sandwiches. The darker bits of meat and scraps were saved for the soup.
I gently fried some chopped onions and the grottier looking value mushrooms (85p). The stalks of the mushrooms had been added to the stock (see above). I then added the stock, heated up for about 10 minutes, whizzzed with the hand blender, tasted it added salt and pepper and some mustard. Added the chicken bits and a half cup of milk. Whizzed it up again and gently brought it to nearly boiling.
Very tasty.
Next day I used the left over soup to poach some monkfish fillets (again reduced price!) Delicious

shell_girl

Thanks everyone! Some brilliant ideas there that I'll be trying out- and a slow cooker is definitely going on my Xmas/Birthday wish list.

I'd never thought of using veg peelings before either! Loving this board- thanks everyone.

Raspberry_Swirl

we buy the same hock from morrisons and get plenty of meat from it.

no need to soak it, just bring to the boil and after about 10 minutes of simmering, drain the water and add fresh water, along with what ever ve you're using. we also add potato at this point. after about an hour or so, take the hock out and add a big handful of rice (or broth mix).

pick all the meat off the bone and add back into the soup. there's only 2 of us but we get about 6 big bowfuls of soup from this and a bit of meat left over for a sandwich.