Talk to me about chickens .. do you buy the largest chicken you can

[Twiglett]

because I've just cooked a 1.5 kilo bird for the first time (normally get huge one) and now I'm thinking that the main difference in weight is the bones because I'm fairly sure we got about 80% of the meat I normally get from a much larger bird. And it was probably about half the price.

Of course I haven't made the stock yet.

I buy about a 1.5kg one get a good couple of meals from it and have no problem making a decent stock

I don't go on weight I go on price. I get a free-range organic supermarket one

Find an £8 (ish) bird will feed us (2 adults, 2 dc) a roast dinner, something for the dc the next day, a curry or risotto for us the next day with possibly enough left of that for 1 adult

Which seems pretty reasonable to me

My dd says it doesn't matter how big it is always yummmmmmmm

twiglett a large bird and a small bird will have very little difference in bone/carcus - therefore you should get more meat of a large bird than you will from a small one.

Where are you getting the hugh ones from - I can only seem to find as big as 2 kilo and thats as large as they get round here - supermarkets and butchers - can you let me know as I like doing one cook and then freezing and making other dishes through the wek with the chicken roast.

local butcher does Sutton Hoo birds

but this bird was by far a smaller carcass

This was a £4 bird (yes free range).. and we got a roast dinner out of it today for 4, will get another stir fry style dinner tomorrow and the stock

With my larger birds we tend to get a round of sandwiches too, or a pie

I buy the largest i can afford. feed 2 adults and 2 children

day one - Roast
Day two - cold and mash

then i will either make chicken and mushroom pie or freeze chicken breast to reheat in gravy or use in a soup another day.

And once i have 3 or 4 carcasses i will do a stock and soup.

why do you need 3 or 4 carcasses .. it only takes one to make a big soup / stock surely

Twiglett

I don't know why i just do the same as my mum always did .

I had a two kilo bird on sunday and had two meals on sunday, three meals on monday (chicken rissotto) two meals on tuesday (chicken pasta bake) two meals wednesday (bubble and squeak with cold chicken) Two rounds of sandwhiches for lunch since sunday.

Nine meals and two sandwhiches, not bad - and I made stock, some I have frozen and some I used in the rissotto on Monday.

We are having ......toad in the hole for tea on thursday - no more chicken left

I tend to find that a 2/3lb chicken will feed me and DS: 1 roast dinner, 2 lots of risotto (I cook a big batch and freeze half) plus surplus stock and any leftover bits get turned into soup.