How Many Meals From One Roast Chicken?

[rotuts]

it must be the hand plucking, which i didn't realize they need.

 

otherwise, there would be a high end market for them.

[Baron d'Apcher]

20 minutes ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

 

That's right, them damn 'Americans' NEVER ever stray from cheap commodity food!!!!! 

The overwhelming amount of pork, chicken and beef raised, sold and consumed in the US is CAFO commodity and those pig & chickens never see the light of day.  That isn't to say that better products don't exist, but they are expensive and Americans spend very little on food compared to the rest of the developed world and much less than what they spent 50 years ago.  It sucks, but that is the reality. 

 

There was a discussion on the merits of better chickens and what people are willing to pay in another food forum.

http://www.donrockwell.com/index.php/topic/47703-chicken-can-a-15pound-chicken-really-be-that-much-better-than-the-inexpensive-stuff/

 

 

[weinoo]

1 hour ago, Baron d'Apcher said:

Americans spend very little on food compared to the rest of the developed world and much less than what they spent 50 years ago.  It sucks, but that is the reality. 

 

I think the reality is Americans spend very little on high quality food. But Americans sure spend a lot on fast food, chips, soda, processed foods and all sorts of other garbage.

 

But...not all Americans.

[Shelby]

25 minutes ago, weinoo said:

 

I think the reality is Americans spend very little on high quality food. But Americans sure spend a lot on fast food, chips, soda, processed foods and all sorts of other garbage.

 

But...not all Americans.

Thanks for that  

[Baron d'Apcher]

This detracts from the chicken carcass calculus, however:

But our spending on food — proportional to our income — has actually declined dramatically since 1960, according to a chart recently published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. As the chart shows, the average share of per capita income spent on food fell from 17.5 percent in 1960 to 9.6 percent in 2007. (It has since risen slightly, reaching 9.9 percent in 2013.)

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/02/389578089/your-grandparents-spent-more-of-their-money-on-food-than-you-do

 

For what it's worth, 3-4 meals from a bird seems to be reasonable when supplemented with vegetables and grains (roasted breast, stuffed legs, braised wings/neck, broth/soup from feet and poached legs).

[Martin Fisher]

8 hours ago, weinoo said:

But...not all Americans.

 

Exactly!!!

[rotuts]

But our spending on food — proportional to our income — has actually declined dramatically since 1960

 

Im sure this is true.   Im also sure that a significant portion of the Pool above spend more, from time to time.

 

and cook it themselves.   Im not worried nor concerned about the vast horde.  

you can find stunning food and Good Eats over a wide range in the USA that you cannot find anywhere else.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Meal one, I roasted my fryer (so sue me) and served with mashed potato and store bought frozen peas.  Ate a leg, a wing, and a portion of white meat.

 

Meal two, chicken divan with broccolini.  Could have finished the four servings but left some on the plate.  Sad.  I hate to waste.  But they say the better part of valor is discretion.

 

Which does not apply to Chartreuse, let alone yellow V.E.P.

 

 

 

[weinoo]

Why would you get sued?

[Anna N]

2 hours ago, weinoo said:

Why would you get sued?

For roasting a fryer.

[willowen]

When I was "re-batchelorized" the first time I wasn't really cooking yet, and that was when I first encountered the supermarket rotisserie bird (or maybe they had just been invented). This was 1968, and they were $1.25 each … and my answer to your question at that time would have been "ONE!" Even when I'd intended to save some, this fog of deliciousness would descend, and when it lifted I'd be greasy, grinning and cleaning up the pile of bones.

 

Under the regime of the latest (and final!) Mrs. O, we would get at least two meals from a decent-sized bird, no matter how prepared, plus a packet of the cooked and uncooked bones etcetera added to the freezer. After two or three of those had accumulated their contents and some appropriate vegetables would go into the crockpot, which Mrs. O referred to as the Shrine to Our Lady of Perpetual Broth, our night would be fragrant, and in the morning the results would be strained through layers of cheesecloth. That would be good for at least two more meals, whether soup, gravy, or chicken and dumplings or noodles.

 

Now Mrs. O eats no birds (nor beasts), so the only time I cook a chicken is when she's away for several days or longer. Next month she'll be gone 2 1/2 weeks … so I'll get back to you on this! 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Meal three:  fryer wing, leg, and thigh -- cold -- with coleslaw, last night's baguette.  Coleslaw courtesy of my recently acquired Watanabe.  Honorable mention to my cut resistant glove.  And yes, rotuts, I used Hellmann's.

 

Most satisfactory.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Meal four:  cold thigh and breast meat, leftover RG beans.  Sour cream.  Corn chips and salsa.  Coleslaw, kimchee, pickled okra.

[naguere]

On 21 March 2016 at 0:12 AM, Baron d'Apcher said:

There are "Bresse -style" chickens raised in Washington state, but in order to qualify as a bonafide Bresse chicken, it has to be from Bresse and the standards for raising/slaughtering them are very stringent, as mentioned in the wiki-link (they have minimum space requirements and need to be plucked by hand on account of the thin skin). Furthermore, Americans think of chicken as a lowly commodity since factory Cornish Cross became the norm and are too cheap to pay what a quality bird like Bresse would cost.

 

You can buy the wonderful poulet de Bresse in England, but at a price:

https://www.frenchclick.co.uk/p-3982-poulet-de-bresse-10-20kg.aspx?gclid=CMi0td_Q6MsCFQ0SGwodSWUMtg

Edited March 30, 2016 by naguere
changed 'cost' to price. (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Meal five:  chicken divan (again).  Asparagus.  A liter or so of MR covers a multitude of sins.  Of which I cannot remember any.

 

Oh, wait, the asparagus was a tad gritty,

[gfweb]

Impressive, Jo

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Meal six:  chicken divan.  Admittedly this was a bit of a stretch, though there is quite a bit of meat on a chicken carcass if one cares to look for it.  Thirty second green beans.

 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

The chicken I cooked over mesquite wood chunks and charcoal served 2 meals for my husband and I on Tuesday. We had baked potatoes and spinach and strawberry salad sides. He ate a leg quarter, and I gorged on a thigh and a wing, my favored parts. I sent a half of of my huge baked potato that was leftover for his lunch plus a chicken leg, so that was meal 3. Meals 4 an 5 were where I pulled one of the breasts into shreds and added it to some jalapeno, white onion and chopped Roma tomato I had fried off in a little oil. I added a little water and Goya Adobo seasoning with the chicken which I just heated through after the veggies were cooked. He had his portion in a burrito and I had a couple of tostadas. There were refried beans, melted colby-jack cheese, lettuce, more raw Roma tomato and sour cream involved in both dishes. There was enough filling to make him another burrito for lunch the next day for meal 6. Meals 7 and 8 were the other breast sliced and put on a sandwich for me and he just wanted the sliced chicken, and he had enough left for a chicken sandwich for lunch the next day along with a banana, so meal 9. Meal 7-8 were preceded by a first course of boiled asparagus, topped with over easy eggs fried in plenty of butter and a lemon wedge as a first course. I cooked a pound of asparagus ($1.27 a pound on sale!) before trimming for the two of us, so a very substantial first course. There was one wing left, and I munched on that for meal 10 with a boiled egg and some strawberries. I wasn't even trying to stretch it this time. I just like cooking with plenty of veggies, and us older people only have so much stomach room.

 

This was a commodity supermarket chicken purchased on sale for 77 cents a pound. The mesquite treatment made it very delicious anyway. I picked the smallest specimen in the case, and it weighed in at just over 6 pounds. The breasts alone were at least a pound apiece after boning. I did not save the bones for stock this time, because the smoky flavor would have limited its versatility, and the juices and fat were lost through the grill grates. In hindsight, the smoky, charred bones may have made an interesting base for a Southwestern themed soup. The raccoons are glad I didn't think of that earlier. 

[kbjesq]

I'm very impressed by the creativity and miserly (in a good way) chicken stories that I'm reading here. Store-bought rotisserie birds around here are no more than ~3 lbs, which means the spouse eats 1/2 for dinner the 1st night, and then I usually make a second meal for him of either soup, dumplings, chicken-rice casserole or a Divan-type thing for meal #2, using the 2nd half.. But rarely do I get more than 2 meals plus chicken broth made in the slow-cooker overnight with any remaining scraps and aromatics.

Oh, and the dogs get a small dinner, too. So arguably that could be meal 3 and 4?

I keep trying to convince people here that meat should be more of a condiment than the star of the meal, but my pleas generally fall on deaf ears. Welcome to the South.  

Edited April 3, 2016 by kbjesq
clarification (log)

[willowen]

That's interesting, because when Mr. Jefferson said that he was referencing the Southern cuisine of his time.

 

[kayb]

I was planning to start the chicken challenge tonight, having thawed one of my farm-raised birds and halved him and stuck him in the oven before I learned my daughter has a dinner engagement. So I'll roast it, debone it, go ahead and start the stock, and put the meat in the fridge to start the challenge tomorrow. I am all but sure I can get at least three, and possibly four, meals for two out of the bird, plus the stock. I'll keep y'all posted.

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Meal seven:  found some carrots I'd intended to throw away three months ago.  Took an onion and four garlic cloves, plus a few black peppercorns.  Two bay leaves.  Broke the carcass apart and pressure cooked two hours.  Reduced some of the broth and served over orecchiette.  Piment d'Espelette and parmesan.  Remainder of last night's baguette with olive oil for dipping.  Small hunk of cheddar.

 

All superfluous except the broth.  Oh, and, yes, the Soave.

[weinoo]

On 4/3/2016 at 1:45 AM, Thanks for the Crepes said:

This was a commodity supermarket chicken purchased on sale for 77 cents a pound. The mesquite treatment made it very delicious anyway. I picked the smallest specimen in the case, and it weighed in at just over 6 pounds. 

 

This is interesting...when I pick out the smallest bird in the case, I can usually find one that weighs in at just over 2 pounds.

 

Now that I've found the "sasso" type birds, at a place that's close enough to make it worthwhile for a trip there, most of those birds appear to be in the 4 pound range, and are slaughtered at a much older age than the commodity birds. And the breast tends to be much smaller.

[Jaymes]

On 4/3/2016 at 0:45 AM, Thanks for the Crepes said:

In hindsight, the smoky, charred bones may have made an interesting base for a Southwestern themed soup. The raccoons are glad I didn't think of that earlier. 

 

Right. My favorite for tortilla soup. 

[kayb]

Life being what it is schedules of course intervened the day I roasted the chicken, so I stuffed him in a Zip-loc and refrigerated him for a couple of days, and got back to him tonight. Dinner the first:

 

Sliced chicken breast with cranberry gastrique (not a true gastrique, but close enough); green beans, blanched and then tossed with butter, salt and pepper; sweet potato wedges (very nearly overcooked because, well, I forgot about 'em) and a cucumber and tomato salad.

 

Just a meal for one, as my daughter had eaten Indian for lunch and was still full. Next up: either chicken and asparagus risotto, or pasta primavera with lemon and chicken.