So how far DO you stretch your chicken?

[tyzer2001]

I was just laughing at Trillian's post on another thread, where she joked she could make one chicken stretch to four meals for four people.

We've all heard the 'Rubber chicken' thing from MSE I'm sure, but I'm interested in the honest truth about other people's chickens (I probably need to get out more TBH).

So - I buy one small chicken, approx £3-£3.50, and roast it...

There are 3 of us, myself, DS aged almost 20 and Dd 14. We'll have the breasts between us as 'roast dinner', then I'll pick the carcass (and I mean pick it, I learned from my mother who makes a chicken look like it's been done over by cartoon piranhas)and usually get one sandwich for myself the next day before using the rest in a korma or pasta bake.

I know I ought to make stock from the bones but every time I've done that, I've ended up throwing it in the bin three weeks later.

So how far do you stretch your chicken?

we get one of the large free range birds, which aren't all the big.
We do a roast, a risotto, and a few sandwiches for 3 people. Can't fathom how people claim to get 5 meals for a family of 8 from one bird [bhmm].

2 adults (one with a huge appetite) and a 3 year old here - roast chicken, curry the next night, a sandwich plus risotto if we're lucky and sometimes stock for soup if I can be arsed. My mum is the same, she produces meat from places the chicken didn't know it had any!

one roast, one pie or several sandwiches, one risotto.

the trick with stock is to bung the bones into a plastic bag in the freezer and do a big and quite concentrated stock session when you have several chickens worth. then freeze in several portions incl one set of stock ice cubes to help the gravy out next time you have chicken.

there are 3 of us. roast dinner, sandwiches, and then a big risotto than lasts 2 nights. again i could boil up the carcass for stock but i would rather use a cube.

Same here - roast, then I strip the chicken and make stock, we have sandwiches from the leftovers then a risotto, and a couple of tubs of stock in the freezer.

And there are four of us, but one is less than a year so doesn't eat that much of it!

2 of us here but OH eats giant portions.
never seen anyone eat so much

if allowed he'd eat the whole thing in 1 go.

normally get a medium bird.

it does a roast and then (I ban him from seconds) either risotto and sandwhiches or a chicken pie / curry

so 2 meals

more often then not cant be bothered to make stock

3 of us. We buy quite a large free range bird.

one roast - we share the legs and wings between us.
Slices of nice meat for another day.
Any left over nice meat goes into lunchtime sandwiches.
The falling apart bits go into a stirfry, curry or pie.
Carcass and any scraggy bits go into making a soup.

So four meals and random number of sarnies. I tend to bulk meals with a lot of veggies. Then we will have fish one night, a rubbishy meal another night (saturday telly night) and a veggie meal another. So, the one chicken would be all the actual meat we have for a week.

BadKitten, that's kind of how we work. I buy a free range chicken and it is the meat for the week.

I don't roast it, I cook it in water with seasonings, a carrot, an onion and a celery stick. This gives really good stock. Then I strip it completely and make more stock from the carcass, skin and whatnot. the meat gets divided into 4 equal portions and used to make different meals: curry, chicken and veg with dumplings, pie, risotto, spicy tortilla bake, pasta bake, easy malay noodles, chicken and rice, creamy chicken jackets, chicken and broccoli bake, chicken and mushroom.... There are tons of things that you can make with it. THe stock gets used to make soup which, usually cream of chicken(with a couple of ounces of finely shredded chicken) and then a thick one with barley and veg. The soup does 2 lunches each.

SO I get, usually, 4 main meals and 4 lunches for 5 (2 adult children, 1 teen and 2 big kids) The rest of the week, the meals are veggie or fish.

I do this with all the meat in here. Last week it was 5 meals from a kilo of mince [bblush]

I get quite a few meals from a large chicken, there are 2 adults and an 8yr old (with a big appetite).
First it's roast, and the breasts are sliced - we eat some for lunch and then the rest is saved for sarnies in the week.
Then I pick the meat from the carcass, I normally portion this into two batches and this goes into a risotto or curry or stir-fry or coronation chicken with a jacket potato etc.
Then I'll boil the carcass down with onions, carrots, peppercorns and bay leaves to make a stock, which will normally go into a soup, bulgar wheat, lentils or a casserole etc.

So I guess that's 3 proper meals, sarnies for a couple of days and a big pot of soup from one bird. :o

Well it depends where we get it from. The ones from most supermarkets or the market last us a roast dinner plus a sandwich plus dh gets the legs in his lunch 2 days in a row.

The ones currently on offer at Ocado seem much better. We get a roast from one half of the breast, plus a few slices for the following day's meal, plus a sandwich or two plus the legs for dh.

Sadly, eating a chicken as a roast dinner is probably the least 'economical' way of eating it. Especially if you have the breast meat for your roast.

I've never bothered with stock, but otherwise can make 4 meals for 3 if one is a roast (roast, pasta bake, sandwiches and cold legs to go with a veg soup or similar) or 5 meals if we don't do a roast (pasta bake, curry, stir-fry, sandwiches and cold cuts).

It should be 3 meals for the 3 of us from a small bird (I'm including stock in the 3 meals) but we have been slack in the last few weeks: roast/casserole, chicken pasta, then soup (curried parsnip at the mo) using the stock.

are we deploying Hookes Law?

Depends on the chicken, but usually one lots-of-meat meal, one not-so-much-meat meal (e.g. risotto) and a few sandwiches. If there were 4 of us I doubt there would be much left after the first meal.

I have one of those torture tables where they stretch people. I use it on the chicken, get a good couple of meters from it..

[bwink]

5 of us.

£4 chicken

Roast and then curry or pasta bake the next day.

Could probably do sandwiches too, but im not keen on the "brown" meat, im a breast girl!

On a more serious note.
2 adults and 1 toddler with decent size chicken I can get 4 meals.

The other week was a roast, 2 pies and a laksa, plus a couple of sandwiches

We eat as much of the bird as we can at the first sitting. (4 of us)

Then sandwiches x about 3.

The end.

4 of us here and we eat most of the meat and if we have leftovers (not always the case) I use them for risotto or pastabake. very seldom make my own stock, the freezer is just too small.

I put my chicken in the slow cooker. Usually stuff the cavity with cut up lemons or oranges, slices of garlic under the skin and salt over the top.

There are five of us and 2 DC have a leg each, 1 DC has the wings and a bit of meat that has fallen off. DH and I share a breast. We have tons of veggies,potatoes and yorkies.

The next day it is picked for a pie or curry or rissotto. Usually do one for that week and one for the freezer for the end of the month.

The carcass is then put back in the slow cooker for soup.

Oh it's a real food thread.

I thought it was euphemistic.