Good article. One point though:

"Throw all of the leftover pieces (bones, skin, neck, gizzards, all of it!) into a big pot..."

Except the liver (the shiny, floppy dark-red-brown part that's included among the chicken guts). Not so good in your soup.

moe52

Sounds ok, but here's a trick for the extremely lazy amongst us.

You basically make the stock AND the chicken at the same time.

In a large pot you put the chicken. All of it. The whole friggin thing then fill the pot with water until it covers the chicken.

One this is done you add whatever you want for the stock, I add:
- 2 carrots.
- 2 onions
- 2 italian tomatoes
- 2 stalks of celery.
- 10 grains of pepper. (The bigs ones, the ones you put in the pepper mill)
- Sea salt
- Thyme, Basil, Parsley, Bay leafs or whatever else you like to add to your broth...

...and you basically boil that for an hour. You can bring the heat down a tad when it starts to boil.

The only down side is that you have to strain the white residue that comes up on the top, that's basically due to a chemical reaction with the skin, but, you can rinse your whole chicken under cold water if you want to avoid the straining part.

Now, I know sometimes grilled chicken is the only way to go, but if you're in a hurry and you just need some meat for a macaroni, homemade chicken and pesto pizza or sandwhiches for the week, it's perfect.

You get an amazingly tender chicken that's great for all those things I just mentioned above. Not only that, but the resulting broth which you, of course, need to filter is one of the bests I've ever had.

Also, if you're watching your fat intake, you set the broth in the fridge overnight and remove the fat that solidifies at the top before freezing it.

The best part about this "recipe", and I do mean the best part, is the incredible smell that propagates throughout the house on a cold Sunday afternoon.

Feel free to ask for specifics!

Cheers.

Woodwater

Lutopia, you've probably BEEN eating chicken-part soup and not known it. Chicken stock comes from bones, not meat. All those necks, backs and feet you aren't buying are going somewhere.

Fabrictramp

Ditto about the liver. Not even so good in giblet gravy.

I'm big on brining the chicken. Much moister and more flavorful than beer can chicken.

We freeze the carcass for later use and make the stock in a pressure cooker. (Throw in lots of spices, along with those carrot tops, onion skins, and celery tops). The stock will be ready in 45 minutes or so. Stock not immediately made into soup gets frozen in one cup containers, ready for use. This is one soup you won't mind eating on soup & bread night.

Fabrictramp

I'll get a third job before I eat Chicken-part soup.

lutopia

If you're going to poach chicken like Woodwater, it's easier to quarter the bird before. Once the chicken is fully cooked, remove the meat and return the bones back to the stock. It takes a minimum of four hours to extract the flavor and gelatin from the bones and cartilage -- way too long to cook the meat.

I usually roast whole chickens, break down (quarter) the bird, and freeze the leftover bones for future stock making.

I've given up brining poultry; I think it does something odd to the meat texture. I will salt the bird, even overnight.

Deprong Mori

The chicken livers can of course be saved, frozen and eventually wrapped in bacon and eaten as an appetizer if you are into this sort of thing. As for those who are not carnivores, Some form of this logic applies to Rutabaga's I'm sure...

angielouwhos

the idea of roaming a store to buy carrion doesn't appeal to me. can we have a detailed post on how to raise and slaughter chickens--pictures too, please. I don't like having meat processing employees stringing up birds by their feet to have their throats slit on an assembly line. I like to see the fear myself.
or maybe just remain vegetarian.
An article on raising hens in an urban environment would be a good one too. Just think about all the meals you could be having with fresh eggs, not to mention the love and friendship of a living creature that depends on you for shelter and care. These things are more than just food products on Styrofoam trays.
mmm

aidan_cage

Thank the gods, I'm a beer drinker.

SnickerHaHa

You @lutopia: You know thats how chicken broth is made. They dont use prime pieces like chicken breasts or thighs to make it.

rdldr1

I like the $4.99 Costco rotisserie (sp?) chickens.

jkrell

@aidan_cage: Not for me friend. I've eaten many a chicken that I had a hand in raising, and I can say with certainty, there's no such thing as a friendship with a chicken. They're not cute cuddly little critters.

Now I'm in the city, and while I buy chicken raised by other people, I don't forget where it's come from. Nor do I forget that the best thing we can do for our environment is not be wasteful. I love articles like this that come right out and say "Hey, if you buy 2 chicken breasts, why not spend the same amount on an entire chicken!" You get more than double the meat, plus ancillary benefits and generate far less waste.

If you want to be a proselytizing vegetarian, why be contradictory about it by suggesting people keep chickens as "friends" egg sources? Cut the eggs out of your diet as well, no honey nor dairy, and then you can feel good about yourself for your contribution to the animal kingdom (eventually we'll all have to, just because of the inherent waste in raising farm animals). If you're going half way and trying to be preachy about it, you're just being a hypocrite.

ugly

Just buy a copy of the cookbook Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue. Someone else cooks the chicken and you transform it into whatever you want.

Chicken livers, ugh, gag, ptooie!

infmom

@angielouwhos: or you can also make patê with them. The thing is to do either they need to be free-range chickens, as toxins are deposited in the liver and kidneys.

Tensor

Yes, yes I know all about buying and cooking whole chickens. But I live alone and I don't like chicken bits (or worse, thawed chicken bits) enough for this to be a useful strategy. A well-roasted chicken is a delicious thing, though...

teeveedoctor

(for those of you too young, that would be channeling Julia Child/Dan Akroyd)

karlawithak

save the liver!

karlawithak

@ugly: point to you my friend. We should also check aidan_cage's clothing for animal products and by-products. Make sure to avoid processed sugar as well, since some plants process it by means for bone char (that's dead animal parts for you unknowing folks.)

I'm not vegetarian or vegan, but I do respect the rest of the world. As far as that goes, I would rather be EATEN than die of starvation, overpopulation, or be euthanized by PETA. (Assholes.)

wynneth

They never invited me to dinner. At best it would be dinner for just two with no leftovers. Assuming I wasn't too hungry. :-)

mballai

This is excellent advice (I reckon our grandparents would be appalled that so few of us seem to do this anymore). Chicken cooked slowly on the bone is way more delicious than grilling a bland breast fillet, and few things smell nicer than a chicken roasting on a Sunday afternoon. It's also great to come home to fridge full of leftover meat for next couple of days.

Proper chicken stock is so much tastier than using stock cubes. I freeze mine in an ice cube tray which makes it a lot easier to defrost just what you need.

robster75

I put the chicken in the oven with BBQ spices. Eat the good stuff and throw away bones and leftovers in crockpot, top with water, 8 hours. Top notch stock.

Adding onions and spices and everything to the mix doesnt change the final taste of the stock if you have good chicken, so don't bother. Save those for the soup later on.

holyspidoo

Don't put the liver and gizzard in the stock pot, saute' it in butter with some salt, garlic and mushrooms, finish with a dash of whiskey, and serve en flambe'.

We used to keep chickens in our back yard. After making stock, I'd give the bones and cooked-out vegetables to the chickens, who would peck it down to nothing. They gave us lots of very rich eggs.

We once tried eating one of the hens (she was an incorrigible egg-eater), but the flavor was too much for us. I much prefer the mild flavor of a speed-grown fryer. As for the friendship of chickens . . . they're noisy dinosaurs with lots of feathers. I couldn't see them as more than egg factories.

I keep a bag in the freezer to hold carrot peelings, onion trimmings, etc. As I prep for cooking, these items go into a bowl, and then to the freezer. When I have enough, I make stock with similarly saved chicken bones. Some stock is pressure-canned, while some is frozen (the texture is different after canning). The fresh stock is rich and gelatinous . . . you'd have to go to a very pricey restaurant to get the like.

DanYHKim

I work with some guys from overseas that swear they've seen people eat a "walkie-talkie" sandwich made with the head and feet.

jonadair

I actually like the chicken liver in the stock. It adds earthy flavor.

krark

@jkrell: Sams Club Rotisserie Chicken is about the same deal. I think $5, cooked and ready to go.

It's not even cost effective to buy it uncooked.

digitalgimpus

You can also check with your grocer to find out when they swap out the rotisserie chickens for fresh ones. The "old" ones still have all the flavor, they're just a bit too dry to eat as a roasted chicken.

We get "old" rotisseries for $3 and usually buy a few at a time. I cut the meat off and segregate it: light goes into chicken salad, dark goes into chicken enchiladas. The cat gets the skin and the carcass turns into chicken stock.

VenomousKate

The supermarket rotisserie chickens are too small, salty and dry to serve as "multi-use" birds -- there's barely anything left after trying to feed 4 people from it. I think it's worth it to spend a little bit more to get a fresh, organic chicken -- then you really can get several meals out of one bird (and the taste is so much better). It takes almost no effort to roast a chicken yourself and throw the "extras" into a pot for stock. And the stock itself is like liquid gold -- magnifique!

abhowell

@abhowell:

Abhowell is correct.

Buy and roast your own chicken: the meat flavor is so much better than the supermarket rotisserie stuff. If you want juicy roast chicken, you roast, let it rest a few minutes and serve (ideally within a half hour after it has left the oven).

Supermarket rotisserie chicken is convenient, but roasting a chicken takes almost no work and the end quality is far superior.

Deprong Mori

This will fit my meatatarian lifestyle perfectly!

Scottey

@happinessiseasy

you are quite right - it is three meals at best - in my family two meals plus stock. But the underlying point is still valid. In my family four chicken breasts is one meal. Costs MORE than one whole bird. For the cost of the breasts I can get 1.5 chickens and that's three meals for real.

owenl1998

Even for a single person this is a great economy if you have a fridge. Roasting a chicken is staggeringly easy (see [tomatilla.com]

You get one meal (maybe a breast or a leg and a thigh. Then carve off the pieces that you would eat cold (maybe legs for lunch or a breast to lay on a salad. That should give you the meat for two or three lunches or other meals. Now strip the rest of the carcass (don't forget the little oyster nuggets on the back) and shred and put in a ziploc. This can go in the soup you will be making later as well as in salads, quesadillas, checken salad sandwiches, etc.

Everything else - surplus skin bones etc - make the stock as described. If you don't have room in the freezer then simmer the stock down to make it thicker and richer, add noodles, veggies and some shredded chicken - season and you have the best chicken soup ever.

Note - for those concerned about quality and free ranginess - get an organic chicken. They are NOT cheap (more like $3 per pound). But if you use the described methods then you can still get 8 to twelve person portions of meat out of one bird in terms of straight meat, leftovers and soup stock. So for say $12 you can get twelve meal portions of food that is good enough to be coming out of a four star restaurant.

Plus - an organic roast chicken dinner is about the best thing you can make for a dinner party - really.

As for those who don't like the 'icky' bits. I don't like the waste inherent in four times as much packaging, four times as much energy to manipulate the bird, etc. And what about the rest of the chicken? If you buy two nice 'clean' chicken breasts, what happened to the rest of the chicken? If you don't care, you should....

owenl1998

I'm going to go along and assume people really don't eat very much, but even so, this math seems very wrong:

"a meal of chicken and vegetables to feed a family of four"
That's 1 meal.

"a meal worth of leftovers"
Two meals.

"a bag full of chicken pieces in the freezer for a future meal for a family of four"
Three.

"a bag of chicken stock for another meal or two"

Hmm.. I don't think "chicken stock" is quite a complete meal for me..

"That's five complete meals"

That's THREE complete meals, and two chicken-stock-only meals.

"and the key ingredients for eight more meals."

Wait, I thought we'd used all of the the chicken for the first five meals? What are these other "key ingredients" you speak of?

happinessiseasy

@happinessiseasy:

The total is single-person meals. So it breaks down like this instead:

"a meal of chicken and vegetables to feed a family of four"
That's 4 meals.

"a meal worth of leftovers"
Another, for a total of 5 so far.

"a bag full of chicken pieces in the freezer for a future meal for a family of four"
Key ingredients for four meals.

"a bag of chicken stock for another meal or two"
Key ingredients for 2-3 more meals.

Five complete meals and key ingredients for 6-7 more. I'm not sure where the "eight" number came from either. Maybe vegetables?

Anyway, it's a lot closer than you thought.

wffurr

I can't even reuse most of the chicken for stock and such, since I tend to consume almost the whole bird with rice on the side.

buying the whole bird and carving the carcass for various needs is the best bang for the buck, and besides, it makes you look like a bad ass chef like person, and only people that doesn't understand love would not want to look like that.

UncleBenny

@jonadair: My mom, who comes from a Czech background, swears that her grandfather (who raised his own chickens) used to deep-fry and eat the feet. I don't know about the heads...

EstherM

@aidan_cage: Lifehacker is for posts on making life easier. Raising a chicken, especially in an urban environment, will end up adding a whole new layer of complexity to your life (not to mention your relationships with your neighbors).

HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak

@ugly: I agree. Anyone who thinks kindly about chickens should raise a bunch. Their mean little buggers.

But they are delicious, especially fresh.

On the article: I LOVE these articles that talk about using all of the animal (that's PA Dutch cooking at its finest!), and allows for me to make several meals at a time. Keep 'em coming!

dirtybacon

I love the feet! Easily my favorite dim sum item...except for maybe the bacon-wrapped shrimp. Crap. Can't wait til Saturday morning...

sterlingsaver

I just go to Mayflower Poultry for a killed that day chicken and roast it up in the oven for a few hours. The leftovers generally last about a week if we're just picking, but we have also been known to use the breast meat in secondary recipes and casseroles that generally serve 8 on top of the picking.

chiieddy

a better "hacked life" would be you showing readers the benefits of being vegetarian, not eating the whole corpse of a dead animal.

how about 'Chicken-Fried Steaks'?
[www.vegcooking.com]

or a whole lot of cruelty-free American cuisine?
[www.vegcooking.com]

vegetables cost and hurt less (on you, the environment and the animals).

tiagoclaus

Sorry guys. Don't know what got into me. Guess I was just looking to be put down. I do feel pretty strongly about industrialized slaughter, which contributes to the lower price tag on these carcasses. It looks like a poor way to experience life from the videos. Eggs, on the other hand, do not need fertilization to be produced. I'm not a hardcore vegetarian, so I don't ask the bus driver if animals were harmed in the manufacturing of the wheels before I pay my fare. I'm also not a carnivore, but I don't think most people are, unless they are out hunting all the time. Most people are scavengers. Scavengers eat carcasses that have been killed by something else. PEACE

aidan_cage

people who say "kepp the meat comin'" are lazy and perserve.
I would like to see them killing the chickens themselves.

tiagoclaus