Pickin’ Chicken
November 6th, 2015 · 1 Comment · Posted in Blog, Recipes
Raise enough chickens and you’re bound to get a few runts, or birds that get injured along the way. Underweight and bony, these birds aren’t suitable for sale or even roasting for dinner. What to do?
I decided to poach them and harvest the meat. The result, a perfect broiler trifecta: we can turn the meat into all kinds of dishes, the poaching liquid becomes a flavorful broth and the skins are saved to feed the cats. It’s our way of turning chicken lemons into broiler lemonade.
(Now, if I could only get our 15-year-old daughter to help. But she touched one of the poached chickens just once with a fork before running away. “Ewww, gross!”)
For instance, last night we used some of the meat in a delicious Thai panang. Saute onions and red bell pepper in your wok. Steam some broccoli on the side. Add coconut milk, panang curry paste, a bit of sugar, fish sauce, a ton of Thai basil if you have it and finally diced chicken. Voila! You’re now eating Thai for dinner and you didn’t even have to leave the house.
This chicken meat is also perfect for the creamy enchilada casserole my wife makes with fresh, home-made corn tortillas. It would work great in chicken pot pie. I also see a curried chicken salad in a future lunch.
What else? Have any ideas you’d like to share?
We do the same here — also save leftover bones for soup. Love your goat shed. We had an Amish crew build one for us last year. It’s lovely, and the sheep and cows love it.