Mumsnet chicken

[ElinoristhenewEnid]

Just bought an extra large chicken. Need advice please on meals as per 'mumsnet' chicken rules to get maximum number of meals from it!!

2 for dinner tonight then just me. How long will it last??!!

Extra large?! If you bulk it out with lentils, you can probably eek it out until Christmas!

@chimchar - great start- this is the sort of advice I am after!!

Tbh the 'mumsnet chicken' only works if you have a large bird from a quality butcher or 'organic'.
If it's just a normal cheap one just eat it in one go with maybe a sandwich tomorrow.
Have you seen the new Morgan Spurlock?

@destroyed people - oh no fallen at first hurdle - mine came from Aldi 😞 Just looked up Morgan Spurlock - will read more later!

Make stock from the bones and use it for risotto, pie, gravy etc that'll keep you going a few months

I’m assuming you’ll be able to feel two people using one keg and a wing, leaving another wing for a sandwich for lunch, and the breasts can be frozen to be chipped away at as and when you want some. The other leg can be put in a casserole which you’d get at least 3 days out of with some salad and crusty bread.

I bought an extra large chicken recently and it honestly did last three meals for four - it was bloody huge. This is is the first time I've managed this though. We roasted the chicken and ate the leg quarters, the chicken was so big that a thigh or drumstick was enough for a generous portion. Then next day the breasts made chicken pakoras. On the third day the bones made a stock, and I made chicken, leek and spinach orzo using the stock and the the picked off bits of meat. It was the biggest chicken I had ever seen though and I certainly wouldn't expect more than two meals usually!

I've got this down to a fine art

You do need a Mumsnet magic chicken though.

Day 1. Cook the chicken. Don't eat it, just put it in the middle of the table and imagine what it tastes like.

Day 2. Everyone has a sliver of breast meat. No more. You are not greedy pigs.

Day 3. Use remaining meat from the partially eaten breast to make a thumbellina pie.

Day 4. Start on the other breast. Make a pasta dish for dinner and sandwiches for lunch.

Day 5. Pack an overnight bag for hospital.
Strip the carcass and make a huge curry freezing most of it for future use. Make stock from the bones and freeze for future use.

Day 6. Have a little rest in hospital due to food poisoning.

Or just cook the chicken, eat it, freeze the carcass until you have enough to make a decent stock like we do. 1 extra large chicken feeds 5 adults for a roast and a few bits for the cats in my house. Job done.

I don't know why pp giving you these answers
This is what i do:
Day 1: roast with loads of trimmings
Day 2: lunch: chicken caesar salad or coronation sandwich
Dinner: stirfry or curry with rice, bulk up with veg like potatoes spinach and chickpeas
Day 3:
Chicken and mushroom pie with pastry top or pasta either with pesto or bacon and cream carbonara style
Day 4 if any meat left then slow cooker chicken bones or cook slowly on stove with bayleaf, veg scraps. Strain add any left chicken bits, noodles or broken up spaghetti, chopped and sauteed onion, garlic, carrots or whatever you have and make a chicken broth.. otherwise add potato, peas or lentils and make a soup using it as stock or freeze the stock for future meals.

Other things you can make is fajita, chicken pasties or on pizza toppings.

I actually bought the mythical chicken a couple of weeks ago.

To be honest it was ENORMOUS, cost me 17 quid from the butchers (I wasn't paying attention clearly) but we were eating chicken for days.

I'd serve it with a massive salad will keep you going to mid july and of course freeze the bones

@DahlingBebe, you mustn’t have much chicken in your curries, pies, salads or roasts if one singular chicken is doing that. That’d probably do single portions of each but you’ll be providing very skimpy portions of chicken if you are serving more than one person for each meal.

3 days from one chicken leg?

😁😁😁 thanks everyone - making copious notes! Love thecone about food poisoning - that will keep the chicken available for a few more days!!

A chicken does us 2 meals and a sandwich there is 3 of us we either have a roast then chicken and leek pie or a stir fry/ fried rice.

In our house, we do:
Day 1: Roast chicken with stuffing and trimmings, usually this feeds me (thigh), DCs (drumstick each) and DH (one breast). They won't eat so much meat if you have stuffing, potatoes, veg, etc. Strip all meat off the carcass.
Day 2: Make stock with bones. Chicken soup with half the stock, using meat from the wings and other stripping off the carcass. Bulk out with onions, carrot, celery, dill, orzo/stelleti/noodles/rice/matzo balls.
Day 3: Make something with the meat from the other breast and thigh: chicken ham & leek pie, chicken & lentil (or potato) curry.
Day 4: Make something with the other half of the stock - we like butternut squash and sage, or mushroom risotto.

Jon, yes this will be ok for 1 person as op will be eating alone but when i feed my family the chicken portions are small but because there is so much else in the meal i think we get away with it.

Another frugal/diet trick is to eat all your veggies, tatties etc first then lastly eat the chicken.

It sounds sad written down 😂 but needs musts.

I do get x large chicken but of course it wont be like making a curry with 4 chicken breasts.

If you like more chicken a compromise is to just enjoy the chicken for one or two meals and then do a stock of the bones and then eat veggie/beans/lentils if you need to.

I guess the trick is that the label doesn't say chicken, but Gigantus Ostrichtisium Rex, that's the only way I can stretch a chicken to more than two meals for two.

Take this tip from my cat. Have a wing each one the first day and leave the rest for your cat. In case you don't have one, you either get one or feed the neighboring cats, problem solved.

My FIL and I were talking about this at the weekend. He was saying when DH was young and they had roast chicken, it lasted longer.

Listening to him, I think the trick is to carve the breasts very thinly for a roast, and bulk out with veg and yorkies. So everyone gets two thin slices of breast instead of a quarter chicken each.

Feels miserable but that's how you get an extra two meals and stock from the bones.

😂 how big are your chicken portions! Think of chicken as a side not the main 😂🍗🥦🥦🥦🥔🥔🥔🥕🥕🥕🥗🥗🍚

HeyMicky I think your fil is on to something. My dgm had chickens, they didn't eat the super young ones, it was often hens and they are much bigger. Unfortunately I think the way chickens are 'grown' and produced now is very fast and very young and that just doesn't provide the meat density and proteins?

If you buy cuts of chicken, it is often pumped with water, it weighs more, when people cook it they think it is moister, but it's just water ☹️.

@MaidenMotherCrone Thank you. I am having a really miserable time and your post has me giggling like a loon

In our house we do:

Day 1: Eat vast majority of chicken
Day 2: Pick at the tiny bit left, decide it's too scraggy and give it to the dog

There are six of us, two of them hate roast chicken but I only get three days most out of a supermarket chicken.

Roast it, eat far too much of it clearly at this stage.

Leave it to cool then take the rest of the meat for mac two sandwiches.

Make bones into soup which in reality would do five servings with veg ( but its normally on the turn on day three in the fridge.

Sorry. But if you want to do a cheese, bacon and broccoli pasta for £1 a head that feeds 7-8 I'm your woman!

@GertrudeCB glad I made you smile. I hope your troubles pass quickly and the sun shines just for you. Keep your chin up.