AIBU to start to believe in the magical Mumsnet chicken?

[HootOwl]

Maybe it is actually real?! 🐔😆

I roasted an (admittedly huge) chicken and also this was all only to feed me and two small children so not huge portions but from one chicken we had:

Roast dinner
Chicken fricassee
Chicken risotto
Chicken pasta bake
Paprika chicken
Chicken soup
Crispy chicken skin (snack)

Will make the effort to roast a whole one more often! I swear it only had two breasts, two legs and two wings...

@AlternativePerspective

I cook 3 x 2kg chickens for one main meal for 7 of us. Right, I've older teens but if you're getting 6 full meals x 3 people, that's 18 dinners out of one chicken that is greed not need. Unless of course you have very little else with it.

How is it greed? If I shared a chicken between 3 of my lads and dh who are all well over 6ft they'd be starving afterwards. They alone eat half a chicken each and of course they have something with it, not a hope half a chicken alone would fill my 18 and 20 year old.

I can get 3 meals out of a large chicken, and that's w 2 ravenous teen boys (and their greedy mother )

@Thethreecs the trick is to not make the meal about filling up on chicken. Instead of half a chicken each you fill the plates with potatoes, veg, Yorkshire, stuffing or whatever then the chicken goes round fine.

I see the comments are proving my point that people have lost sight of what a portion of meat is meant to look like!

@daisyjgrey it works really well in the slow cooker, just stick it in with some water, carrots and onions etc and ignore for 8-12 hours

How is it greed? If I shared a chicken between 3 of my lads and dh who are all well over 6ft they'd be starving afterwards. They alone eat half a chicken each and of course they have something with it, not a hope half a chicken alone would fill my 18 and 20 year old

If you assume there's 700 g of meat in half a 2 kilo chicken, that's around seven portions of meat in one meal.

Even if you generously say they can have a double portion because they're all 'big men who need lots of meat' then it's still 3-4 large portions of meat in one meal. How is not greed?

The meat portion should only be about a quarter to a third of the plate, with veg and carbs like potatoes to make up a full meal.

Oh gif only on MN could people argue about whether it's "greedy" to want to eat a whole chicken breast...🤦🏼‍♀️

Yeah I give them veg and potatoes too. Still not a hope of sharing a chicken between 7 people. They're like bottomless pits when it comes to food.

@PattyPan

I see the comments are proving my point that people have lost sight of what a portion of meat is meant to look like!

@daisyjgrey it works really well in the slow cooker, just stick it in with some water, carrots and onions etc and ignore for 8-12 hours

But then you have to separate the mush of bones, veg etc and it splashes everywhere to end up with a load of tasteless dishwater that you then have to store because you've no immediate use for chicken stock, because you've just had chicken and want to eat something else.

I just use nice stock cubes, eg Kallo. Nicer, cheaper, less messy.

How is it greed? If I shared a chicken between 3 of my lads and dh who are all well over 6ft they'd be starving afterwards. They alone eat half a chicken each and of course they have something with it, not a hope half a chicken alone would fill my 18 and 20 year old. because no-one needs to eat that amount of meat. It’s not healthy for starters, but reality is that the more you eat, the more you can eat.

Chicken plus potatoes plus several different veg plus stuffing plus Yorkshire pudding and there is absolutely 0 reason why a large chicken can’t feed 7 people. It’s after all not just the chicken they’re eating. 6kgs of chicken for 7 people is obscene. And yes. It’s greed.

@AlternativePerspective

How is it greed? If I shared a chicken between 3 of my lads and dh who are all well over 6ft they'd be starving afterwards. They alone eat half a chicken each and of course they have something with it, not a hope half a chicken alone would fill my 18 and 20 year old. because no-one needs to eat that amount of meat. It’s not healthy for starters, but reality is that the more you eat, the more you can eat.

Chicken plus potatoes plus several different veg plus stuffing plus Yorkshire pudding and there is absolutely 0 reason why a large chicken can’t feed 7 people. It’s after all not just the chicken they’re eating. 6kgs of chicken for 7 people is obscene. And yes. It’s greed.

You obviously have young children and haven't seen what grown lads eat.

We don't have Yorkshires here so don't have them.

Definitely works (magic chickening not stock making) if you use it to put in things like curry or soup. Works with roast dinners too if you have plenty of veg/ stuffing etc. I used to make it last ages. It doesn't work if I am left alone, hungry, with a freshly roasted chicken.

It helps to have been brought up by parents who were brought up with rationing in the war and poor. Your idea of portion size is completely different.

I see the comments are proving my point that people have lost sight of what a portion of meat is meant to look like! quite. It’s no wonder we have an obesity crisis in the UK when this is what people think a decent portion is like.

Nobody needs to pile their plate high with food, but even if they eat a lot, some chicken plus say 3/4 halves of potato plus say, carrots, peas, broccoli, parsnips or whatever else, plus Yorkshire puddings and stuffing. And if people really are still hungry at the end of all that then they can surely have fruit or even dessert after.

You only have to look at the states where they have one of the highest rates of obesity in the world, and the portion sizes to show for it. People don’t eat that much because they need to, people eat that much because they can.

Years ago we went to Florida and ate at dennie’s diner in the morning. Because we didn’t want to eat in the parks we had a grand slam breakfast each, so that was 2 eggs, 2 sausages, 2 pancakes, and 2 bacon for $2.99. At the beginning of the week I felt literally ill after eating all that. By the end of the week I could eat it easily. If I’d stayed over there or kept eating portions of that size then it’s easy to see how my body would think that I needed that amount of food.

You obviously have young children and haven't seen what grown lads eat. nope. 19 yo here and a DP who eats a lot.

You obviously have young children and haven't seen what grown lads eat

Young lads with an unlimited budget and no environmental conscious to think it is acceptable to eat half a large chicken in one meal? I thought all 'young people' were plant based for the sake of the planet these days.

We don't have Yorkshires here so don't have them

Where are you so you don't have milk, eggs and flour?

I cooked a 2kg chicken yesterday.

We ate some of the meat, DP and ds had 3 potatoes each and I had 2. They each had 2 Yorkshire’s I had one, they had carrots and peas and I had carrots. And there is easily enough meat left for me to make soup/risotto/chicken mayo baked potato. I might use the carcass for stock but that depends on how much time I have.

@BarbaraofSeville you can strain it in a sieve or cheesecloth if desired and it freezes really well. I don’t buy whole chickens very often but do have a lot of soup so do usually either have stock made from veg scraps (which I keep in the freezer until I have enough) or Kallo very low salt stock cubes in the interim.

Some of the posters here are the types who would post on other threads where OP says the teenagers are emptying the fridge and say something like “my kids need to eat several multi packs of crisps and chocolate a week, a few packets of biscuits, several large pizzas and they stop at McD’s on their way home, and that’s before I cook them 3 chickens for dinner. If you don’t have all that in the house then obviously you’re starving your children and should be buying more.”

Really didn't intend the thread to turn into a bunfight! It was meant to be lighthearted and for sharing recipe ideas.

@AlternativePerspective

You obviously have young children and haven't seen what grown lads eat. nope. 19 yo here and a DP who eats a lot.

That's fab then that you can share a breast of chicken between you all.

@BarbaraofSeville

You obviously have young children and haven't seen what grown lads eat

Young lads with an unlimited budget and no environmental conscious to think it is acceptable to eat half a large chicken in one meal? I thought all 'young people' were plant based for the sake of the planet these days.

We don't have Yorkshires here so don't have them

Where are you so you don't have milk, eggs and flour?

What I mean is, it's an English thing to have these, I'm not in thy UK, so don't have them with our dinner. I could make them but tbh they're not nice and no point making them if we don't like them.

@HootOwl this is AIBU you may need to go to www.mumsnet.com/Talk/food_and_recipes for a recipe thread.

DH always goes for curry with left over chicken or any other meat for that matter. I think he can only cook fry ups and curry.

Where are you buying these chickens??
The last time I bought a supposedly large chicken, from Tesco, it was absolutely tiny. We managed a roast dinner for 5 plus soup with the leftover meat, totally stripped down and stock made with the carcass. That’s it! I need a giant chicken.

Tbh OP these threads do generally go the same way, because posters sneer at those who actually are able to make more than one meal out of a roast chicken probably because they either won’t or feel they don’t have to.

Likely these are posters who have never had to watch what they’re spending, after all someone who has the space to roast 3 chickens as well as everything else that goes with them probably doesn’t need to watch the pennies.

Where are you buying these chickens?? I bought mine in the butchers. Cost only 50p more than the medium one.

I do agree that the supermarket chickens don’t seem to be as big or as succulent as the butcher’s ones.

Yes, I can see that butchers chickens might be better. I’ll try that. 😊