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How to turn chicken legs into chicken breasts?

Maison Rustique

By Maison Rustique
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Maison Rustique

Maison Rustique

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My very generous friend presented me yesterday with a family pack (around 15 in the package) of chicken legs. Ugh. I really do not like chicken legs, but I try not to look a gift horse in the mouth. How can I prepare these to trick myself into thinking they are nice white meat chicken?

Deb

Liberty, MO

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rotuts

rotuts

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after cooking  , any easy way

 

strip off the met and put in a savory // creamy casserole 

 

or iPot a fw t a time , w water just to cover

 

to make stock.

 

re-use the stock several times to get concentrated stock

 

freeze after defatting for later use.

 

no white meat  , b ut tasty.

Edited by rotuts (log)
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BeeZee

BeeZee

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I'm in the same camp as you, I think if you debone/de-tendon them, cut into pieces, and braise in a flavorful liquid you may find them acceptable. Chili, butter chicken, etc.

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"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" - Oscar Wilde

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blue_dolphin

blue_dolphin

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Remove skin and bones then cook the heck out of them so they are dried out with the texture of cotton balls. That describes chicken breasts to me!
 

More seriously, are they just drumsticks or leg quarters with leg and thigh?  If the former, I agree with @btbyrd, though I prefer an unroasted stock. 
 

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Maison Rustique

Maison Rustique

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32 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

Remove skin and bones then cook the heck out of them so they are dried out with the texture of cotton balls. That describes chicken breasts to me!
 

More seriously, are they just drumsticks or leg quarters with leg and thigh?  If the former, I agree with @btbyrd, though I prefer an unroasted stock. 
 

 

@blue_dolphin, they are just drumsticks. Greasy, with veins and tendons. Yick!

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Deb

Liberty, MO

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Alex

Alex

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6 hours ago, Maison Rustique said:

I really do not like chicken legs, but I try not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

How about a gift chicken? Wait, they don't have any teeth. Never mind.

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"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

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Alex

Alex

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Stock (unroasted), then remove the meat (it's easy to get rid of the veins, etc.) and make a big, big batch of chicken salad. My current favorite ingredients are toasted almond batons (for lack of a better word) and unsweetened dried cherries. Celery is good, too, if you can locate a non-bitter one. Dressing is mayo (Duke's nowadays), Dijon mustard (Maille), and dried dill.

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"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

A king can stand people's fighting, but he can't last long if people start thinking. -Will Rogers, humorist

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Katie Meadow

Katie Meadow

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No leg  is complete without its foot. Al least if you are planning to make a big pot of stock, buy a pound of feet to cook them with. I too find the leg by itself to be unappealing. Occasionally if I'm going to bbq I will buy quarters--a leg/thigh piece. I will  eat one thigh and my husbands gets a quarter plus the extra leg. He has never complained about the leg part. He's a frugal partner; he'd rather eat food that I think is clearly on its way south than toss it.. So he is happy to eat the unhinged leg, as if it's free food or something just because I don't want it!  Really, he comes by it honestly. I don't believe his mother ever quite realized how much three teenage boys could eat

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liuzhou

liuzhou

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I usually eat legs by preference (they are tastier) and I genuinely enjoy preparing them - removing the skin (cook's treat), deboning them (easy). I never bother with the veins, they melt away in the cooking.  They may not taste like breast but that's why I prefer them.

 

Bones are reserved for stock (and yes, feet are essential in chicken stocks).

 

Edited by liuzhou (log)
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AlaMoi

AlaMoi

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Posted

I am very fond of the dark meat thighs....

 

legs "solo" are a tricky bit to manage.  with 15 legs in the package, you'll likely get something close to a pound of 'decent meat'

I cook them, cool, just using fingers strip out the meaty bits.  some tendons/etc will come with the finger-mechanical-separation technique - but it's not difficult to knife them out.

 

I use the separated meat bits in a mix with white meat - waste not, want not....  in a 4:1 / 3:1  white:dark, it is not at all 'noticeable'

 

once the meat is stripped, one can carry on into the stock/gelatin route . . .

 

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Maison Rustique

Maison Rustique

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15 hours ago, AlaMoi said:

I am very fond of the dark meat thighs....

 

legs "solo" are a tricky bit to manage.  with 15 legs in the package, you'll likely get something close to a pound of 'decent meat'

I cook them, cool, just using fingers strip out the meaty bits.  some tendons/etc will come with the finger-mechanical-separation technique - but it's not difficult to knife them out.

 

I use the separated meat bits in a mix with white meat - waste not, want not....  in a 4:1 / 3:1  white:dark, it is not at all 'noticeable'

 

once the meat is stripped, one can carry on into the stock/gelatin route . . .

 

 

I hadn't thought of mixing in with some white meat, but am sure I've got a breast or two in the freezer. And, yes, it will end up being very little leg meat, so I think I can make something palatable of it.

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Deb

Liberty, MO

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JohnT

JohnT

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Drumsticks - Roast them - cool them - strip the meat and make Chicken a la King! Then use the bones etc for stock! 

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Bernie

Bernie

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The price was right........😀

Just quietly  bin them...you actually haven't lost anything.....😌

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Be kind first.

Be nice.

(If you don't know the difference then you need to do some research)

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Duvel

Duvel

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9 hours ago, Bernie said:

The price was right........😀

Just quietly  bin them...you actually haven't lost anything.....😌

 

Well ... some chickens lost their lives.

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donk79

donk79

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Two weeks later, so I sure hop these are either frozen or sorted!  But everytime I see this topic, all I can think of is when I used to keep a small flock of chickens.  How would I have turned legs to breasts?  (Make stock and) feed the legs to the chickens!

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jedovaty

jedovaty

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How about ground chicken (debone, lightly freeze, food processor)?  From here, all sorts of other options: mix with other ground chicken or protein (turkey, shrimp, etc), chicken skewer thingies, burgers, meatloaf, sausage/chorizo, ravioli/gyzona/potstickes/dumplings, mapo tofu, stuffed peppers/cabbage, mix with eggwhites to make a raft for consomme, etc.

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  • 1 month later...
Shel_B

Shel_B

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Posted
On 7/29/2024 at 4:12 PM, Bernie said:

The price was right........😀

Just quietly  bin them...you actually haven't lost anything.....😌

Instead of wasting good food, one could regift them or donate to a food pantry ...

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 ... Shel


 

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