When you roast a chicken, be honest! How much do you waste?

[WheresThatCatGoneNow]

When I cook a chicken, nothing is wasted!

The stock is poured into a tub, and goes into my freezer. All the meat left on the bird after I've had my meal, and all the fatty gristly bits, are painstakingly picked off and stored in airtight containers in the fridge.

They will feed my cats for at least four mealtimes!

Nothing is wasted in my house.

I've watched my brother roast a chicken, take off a leg and some breast, and then throw the rest in the bin because he couldn't be bothered dealing with the messy part! And he threw the stock away aswell

I was furious.

an hour's cooking to replace a single stock cube? No thanks

Stock cubes replaced proper stock, not the other way around. A gritty cube of some chickeny stuff, other flavourings, palm oil, potato starch and yeast (and in the case of Oxo etc colourings and monosodium glutamate) is no replacement for proper stock.

Adding to the stock recipe - in theory you should discard the veg that you have used as all the flavour will be in the liquid.

Remove all edible chicken before boiling the bones as it will overcook and also be tasteless after boiling. If you want to make chicken soup then put it back in after you have finished the stock.

None, local foxes who visit our garden eat the carcass for us.

@balkangrill

The chicken thing always confuses me. Either British people have very small appetite or British chicken are very big. My family of five eats 1,5 kilo bird for one meal easily. I don't know anybody making stock from bones, we use half a kilo of wings to make chicken soup, but I am sure homemade stock is tastier than cube, so maybe that is something to start . However, I've read the whole thread and these stretchy chickens remain mystery to me

Oh my family of 3 could easily eat a whole roast chicken in one sitting if I let them!

But for both money and health reasons I am trying to make the chicken stretch by keeping to to recommended portion of meat per person which is about 3-4 oz or the equivalent as the same size as a pack of playing cards.

And even then we eat more than we should. So for the first roast sit down I give DH a thigh section plus 2 slices from the breast, I have a wing and 2 slices from the breast (plus I sneak the oysters and a bit of extra dark meat in the kitchen) And my DD has a leg and 2 slices of breast meat.

That leaves pretty much half a chicken for the next day.

[quote MrsPelligrinoPetrichor]@bumblingbovine49 if you start it off for the first half an hour breast down then turn it over the breasts are MUCH nicer.[/quote]
Same with roast turkey..

The first time I did this, as I cooked xmas dinner son kept plying me with gin cocktails. By the time I should have turned the turkey right side up I'd had too many gins and forgot. When I got the cooked turkey out to carve it, I was so drunk I couldn't work out what the hell was was wrong with its anatomy, or how to carve it . I called on son (a vet) to help.. He was absolutely hysterical with laughter and rushed to tell the others "Mum is so drunk she can't recognise the turkey and can hardly stand up". ( Nonsense, I was perfectly fine gripping the AGA front bar) They sent me to have a little sit down while they finished the cookijng.

It was the tastiest moistest turkey and ever since then, I always cook them upside down for the whole time. Just remember to turn it right way up before trying to carve .

Peak mumsnet.

@PolytheneRam

Peak mumsnet.

not really

I eat all the meat - breast, legs and oysters.

And then I make stock from the carcass before using the left over bones to feed the family. For 12 months.

im veggie now, but I used to roast it for a roast dinner, then id boil up the rest of the carcass till the meat fell off the bones. Then when it was cooled, id strain the stock into the pan, and id seperate into 3 plates, meat that could go back into the soup or whatever else i wanted to use it for. The bits of gristle and skin and innards for the dogs and cats, and the bones to go in the foodwaste bin, so only the bones were usually wasted.

Nothing but I can easily understand why people wouldn't bother with making soup. Good broth takes time. And if you don't even like soup why bother.
I love mine so I use every bit 😁

I never even knew those nice bits underneath you can poke out were called oysters . You learn something new every day!

A good soup made with homemade stock is a thing of beauty!

Loads because I'm not a fan of the dark meat and hate all the fatty bits

None of it is wasted.

1. I really like chicken.
2. The cats really like chicken.
3. We both really like proper chicken stock.
4. Have you seen how much a decent chicken costs these days?

One carcass and stringy bits, an onion, a carrot or two, celery, bay leaf, parsley, thyme (whatever you've got really probably not mint) black peppercorns and cover with cold water. Simmer for 2 hours. Strain. Pour liquid into milk bottle and freeze when cool.

Perfect for soup or use to boil pasta for pasta bake and then add the residue to the sauce. Perfect goodness.

Breast, legs, wings and oysters eaten, the horrid slimy under belly stuff goes to the dog so no waste.

I do my stock in a pressure cooker and it doesn't take long.

It is a dense jelly.

I put bunches of bay/rosemary/sage into mine first, then the chicken, full bulb of garlic halved, two onions quartered, all skins on.

After a hard boil I bashed in to bits with the potato masher.
This is critical for getting all the goodness out that is pure dynamite for protecting your chest during the winter months.

Spinach soup is particularly good made with it.

Eat the oysters and the wing flats and bin the rest.

I slow cook mine for 20 hours😂
Bones crumble

We only eat the breast meat so I rarely buy one as don't want to waste it, but if I know I am going to be seeing my parents the following day, I will buy one , take off the 2 breasts and give what's left to them. It tastes so much better than just buying single breasts.

They eat the wings and legs cold with salad, then mum will boil up the carcass to make soup, so nothing is wasted .

We do the same as your brother, so mainly just buy chicken breasts now.

And Nigella can freeze chicken carcasses if she wants but my freezer is small and mainly used for ice cream and ice cubes.

Wings are chopped off before roasting as they end up overcooked compared to the rest of the bird. I have a wing collection in the freezer and when I get a good number, these will form part of a bbq spread.

Once we've eaten what we want for our main roast dinner - with juices used for gravy, I strip every scrap of meat from the carcass. I actually love this job! I remember reading a book a while ago - it was a true story, a memoir of a very poor family and the author was describing how much meat you can actually get from a chicken, even when most people would think it was already stripped bare. I was reading it thinking "this is not news to me, this is exactly what I do". Stripping the chicken is a task I do on my own, with the kitchen door shut, while listening to a podcast. DH thinks this is because it's a bit grisly and messy and he wouldn't be able to cope. Really it's because I eat the oysters and don't want him to know about these delicious morsels.

There are only two of us so we generally find that there's enough leftover meat for three further meals. These are portioned and frozen for later. I tend not to use/eat leftovers straightaway. Then I make stock from the carcass - although, again, I often freeze the carcass for future stock making. Agree with others that there is a world of difference between soups and risottos (especially risottos) made with homemade stock vs a cube.

I thought I was pretty good at wasting absolutely nothing but am now shamed by the poster who feeds the bones to the red kites

In contrast, my MiL is like the OP's brother. About 75% of the chicken goes in the bin after they've had what they want for the initial roast. It makes me so angry. Don't get me started on the amount of turkey they bin after christmas dinner. She's always so proud about it too: "in this house, we can afford fresh food every day; we don't need leftovers". (need an exploding head emoji here).

There was a poster on MN once who claimed a large chicken lasted her family of 4 for 4 days and on the fifth day she used the skin to make a fucking risotto

Freezing the carcasses is brilliant if you’ve space in the freezer.

I remember a poster on here describing her deep freeze as ‘Golgotha’ and I laughed so hard.

I have to say that I would not be able to not say anything to people buying whole chicken, eat part and throw most away. It's so disrespectful to the source.