AIBU to cook a 1KG chicken for 5 people at Christmas?

[ChickenChristmasDinner]

Our family have voted to have chicken at Christmas this year. We normally have a 1KG chicken for 4 people. Two people have a breast and the other two have a leg each.

However, at Christmas, there will be 5 of us at the table. I was thinking that as there will be starters, sides and a pudding at the feast , then our usual 1KG chicken might stretch to 5 people?

Am I being over optimistic?

I’m picturing Michael Cane and Kermit singing over a turkey.

Two months to Christmas and we have already found the best Xmas AIBU!

Firstly OP, if that's the chicken you like and your guests will be happy with it, go for it. But please make sure there's enough food to go around. If you have these often enough as a 4 surely you know if there's enough for a 5 th person? Maybe it'll be ok if there's plenty of everything else, but if in doubt buy a second or some additional breasts/thighs to cook as well.

This aside, I also prefer breast meat. Cooked well it's yummy (cooked badly it's just chewy nastiness in fairness) I do prefer the taste of leg meat but I'm neuro diverse and have a hard time with the texture/eating off a bone.

Also, can anyone explain why cockrels and sheep/goat heads can't be produced here from British animals? If not hear that before and would be curious to know the reason, especially given they can still be imported?

This thread is making me anxious about Christmas dinner but in a non-chicken way - my mum is equally miserly about potatoes. Every year we go to Tesco for the big shop and she grabs a bag of those frozen McCain-type roasties 🤮 FFS mum just buy some spuds and I'll peel, parboil and roast them myself 🫠

I was curious and looked at the reviews (as usual, I suspect they're mainly bots). One review did warm my heart a little though, they said they buy two a week for their elderly dog who deserves to be pampered!

I hate the darker meat and I can't bear meat on the bone. On the rare occasion we have chicken thighs instead of breasts I have to get DH to get the meat off for me! Luckily he prefers the darker meat so when we have a roast he has the darker meat.

do them at home and take them with you, I would!\

It depends who is eating it surely? My DC eat like birds so it would definitely be enough for my family of four. If you have an extra adult and you are having ham or another meat as well, it will probably be enough anyway.
And at Christmas, you will be serving it with so many sides, plus starters and puddings as well.

We are a family of 5 and i try and buy a chicken over 2 kg if we have one at the weekend. This will leave left overs for sandwiches but means there is plenty of breast meat for whoever would like some. A 1 kg chicken on christmas day sounds miserable and you must have to really seek one out that small?

We get one chicken between six of us every Sunday. But I never look at the weight. So I think it's doable if it's a large chicken.

I live 2000 miles away and only go over at Christmas so unfortunately that plan wouldn't work 😂 Although if I did them at home and transported them in my hand luggage they'd still be better than frozen roasties 🫤

Tesco do a 1.6-1.8kg one fairly cheap. 1kg seems extremely small

Are u Tiny Tim's father?

Couldnt agree more! But the practicalities are a bit off!

Would "oh mum, found an amazing recipe for roasties that are really nice, so I would like to cook them this year" work?

That’s an absolutely tiny amount of meat for Christmas Day, and you can’t reheat a sugary precooked chicken for Christmas dinner!

Those precooked chickens are for sandwiches and picnics! I can’t get my head around how they can taste better than a fresh chicken, they’re always dry and tough.

the sheep and goat head controls are from the days of BSE. BSE jumped species from sheep (it was known as "scrapie") to cows and thence to people. It sits in the brains and spinal cord of slaughtered animals so heads from UK produced and slaughtered sheep and goats are still illegal. Aus and NZ never had the same problem so heads can legally be imported from there. Cockerels are still raised for meat from specialist producers but caponisation is illegal in the UK for welfare reasons, the same as pate de foie gras.

That's what I do! I'm a carb-dodger 364 days of the year but on Christmas Day I want full on crispy potato deliciousness 😋

The only chicken we eat is free range or organic.
I'd not touch a chicken farmed any other way. They have no flavour .
Yes, I'm lucky we can afford that.

I buy a chicken that's around 1.2kgs . We get 2 meals off it and stock for soup or risotto. One meal is 1 leg and the breast, next day the same, cold.

You will struggle to feed 5 off a small chicken.

Why don't you buy a turkey crown? Lots of meat on those.
Or even a small turkey?

I'm getting a goose from the farm down the road, true, but the snobbery on this thread is something else 😂

"A pre-cooked chicken for Christmas Day??" - chicken is chicken, pre-cooked or otherwise.

"How will you make gravy?!" - have you ever heard of a little thing called Bisto? Or stock cubes and cornflour?

Not everyone is a natural or willing cook. It doesn't mean they can't still host a perfectly good Christmas lunch.

I'm another that likes to cook a lot and have leftovers for days, and some to drop off for neighbours etc. But it's your house, your rules.

Bisto and cornflour make rubbish gravy unless you add them to the juices off the chicken. Just mixing them into water is not real gravy.

Chicken that is pre cooked is not the same as freshly cooked chicken.
I put a bunch of thyme in my raw chicken, season it and sometimes put butter under the breast skin.

It's not about being snobby. It's about good cooking.

I got 2 of those chickens from Sainsbury's for 2.76. they were 1.6kg.

One would do 5 people.

I cooked a 1.6kg chicken AND a gammon that you get in the foil container to cook in the oven last Sunday for 6 adults, plates were cleaned and I had 0 leftovers there is no way a 1kg chicken would feed 5, well certainly not my family anyway

No way. Once you discard the carcass you're left with about 650g of actual meat. An average chicken breast is about 150g, which I'd say is a portion of meat. So no, not enough. Seems odd to be stingy over when you can get a 1.5kg chicken instead for a few pounds more.

And I'll be making all my own stuffings (X3) and gravy from scratch too, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with OPs plans. If it works for her then let her be.

Hell if people want to they can have oven pizza and hotdogs for Christmas dinner. It's none of our business and as long as they're happy then crack on.

OP didn't ask for judgement on her food, she asked for opinions on quantity.

Cracking thread. I'm having flashbacks to the first time I stayed with my parents-in-law for Christmas. My mother was a very good cook and her Christmas dinner was always excellent. My MIL was a terrible cook. My FIL never cooked, which is a pity as he would have been better at it. We had a Bernard Matthews turkey roast. It could have been worse. The fact that I remember it vividly more than 40 years later perhaps tells its own story, though!