If I were to buy a whole (organic) chicken, would I be able to make enough meals to make it worth it?

[hopefully]

Looking in the supermarket today, a reasonable sized whole organic chicken is a little under a tenner ().

Since we are not millionaires, the only way to buy said chicken is to eke it out over many many meals. animal guilt means non-free-range chicken is not an option, and organic never seems to be much more than plain free range, hence the chicken choice.

So how can I do it? Anyone got a routine, like roast on a sunday, followed by cunning things like soup and stew on monday and tuesday?

Or will the chicken always remain out of reach to me?

Oh, and there's only me and DP (and soon to be born baby, which I'm hoping won't want chicken from birth...) to feed with the chicken.

I reckon ours does:

• roast chicken
• chicken sarnis
• chicken risotto and/or pasta with chicken, pesto & mushrooms
• plus chicken noodle soup from the carcass (which will feed about 6 people - usually me & kids one day, dh & I for supper another day.

If there are only two of you, though, I'd buy a smaller chicken rather than an average size one to start with...

I've just been reading Rose Prince's 'The New English Kitchen' (charity shop), and she's saying exactly this - you buy a good quality chicken, and use everything. She suggests that from one chicken weighing 2.5kg, you'd get:
1st meal: Four 150g helpings of roast chicken
2nd meal: four 90g helpings of cold meat in a salad
3rd meal: two sandwiches made with the remainig cold meat
4th meal: Four helpings of creamed squash soup, made from 1 litre of chicken stock
5th meal: two helpings of mushroom risotto, made from 500ml of stock.

Made sense to me.

from a 4lb chook I get a roast dins for me and DH and enough leftovers to do a chicken pasta meal for DDs (2 and 4yo) and a chicken curry for me and DH. We then make stock and / or soup with the carcass.

I buy from our local butchers, a free reange chicken from there is cheaper than the supermarket equivalent and (important for us) locally produced. Another big binus is that the butcher's chook includes the giblets too which makes the soup / stock really superior! For some reason supermarkets seem to think people don't want giblets with their chooks anymore

I prefer to buy the biggest chikcen you can afford - you get more for your money and it cooks better than a small one.

Thanks for the suggestions, exactly what I was after! I'm going to buy one next week and challenge myself to at least 3 main meals and a soup out of it.

Feel free to throw any other suggestions at me!

Hover round the cheap cabinet and cook it immediately.

Why should it be organic?
What does actually organic mean in terms of chicken?

They have 100% organic feed and cannot be given injections as far as I know.

Plus it will have room to run about, like a free-ranger.

As a veggie, I'm probably not the best to give advice on this but....

When I was growing up we would have roast chicken on Sunday, cold chicked with veg on Monday, Chicken and veg curry on Tuesday and chicken soup on wednesday.

Hope that helps

There's no way a chicken would survive at my table for more than a meal (actually... I think we would need at least 2 )

My only advice is to eat meat instead of chicken, cows are, as a rule, free range.

i dont think organic chickens are nec essarily free range

and i find they dont have as much meat on and are tougher

the latter could be because we are used to fattier chickens

The only tough organic chicken I've had is, Voldemort, our cockerel. He is one mean mutha.

Anyway, last week I did roast chicken for 2 adults & 3 children. On Monday I made a chicken & ham puff pastry pie using the leftover white meat. We had the leftover leg meat cold for lunch and from the stock I made chicken & sweetcorn soup (1pt stock, 2 boiled potatoes, 1 fried onion, seasoning - whizz it up then add finely chopped chicken, a good handful of sweetcorn and some milk or cream).

Organic chickens have better living conditions than standard free range chickens.

soil association standards

defra free range standards - this is woth a look if you didn't know there are different types of 'free range' (and if you care that there are..)

You called your chicken Voldemort? I love it! Would love to grow my own, but know I would get attached and never actually eat the darn thing...

My organic thing is also partly a worry about the antibiotics thing - I have no science background at all, but I slightly worry that if we keep injecting animals with antibiotics etc, sooner or later there's going to be more immune strains and we're not going to be able to cope. Probably that's v flawed logic in some way, but it keeps me happy!

My dp and dd2 must be complete gluttons then because they eat a whole free range chicken between them in one sitting - they just stay at the table until it is gone.

Sounds like I need to start hiding some of it from them!

I buy free range organic chicken and now always get one big one and use everything, including bones for stock - for soups etc. Much cheaper then buying organic cuts of meat - SO EXPENSIVE. I do it for taste reasons, to be free of antibiotics and all that and for the joy of the chickens grooving about their home in all weathers unaware of their fate.

We don't manage to make it last, but DP loves chicken sandwiches so he has chicken throughout the week in his sarnies, could also make a soup with the carcass but I always forget to buy leeks.

chicken and mushroom pie is a great one for leftovers.

I'd roast it, eat the legs with a roast, have the breasts for a chicken pie the next day,

chicken risotto with all the scraps the following day

and stock with everything else for soup or to freeze.

zippitipitoes

organic chickens are ALWAYS free range...
there is no such thing as as an organic battery chicken farm.

(however the non-organic chickens where i work would have more space per chicken than an organic supermarket one i expect.... 2 chickens have a huge garden )

Hopefully - it is not a flawed logic (I'm a microbiologist)

so free range organic is tautologous then

Organic refers to what they are allowed to be fed/ medicated with etc as well as living conditions, whereas free range only refers to living condiotions. If an organic bird is tougher it is because it is older as it would need to be to get to a decent sixe without growth hormones.