You may think that my understanding of the word "frugal" leaves a bit to be desired when i tell you that the start of my week of frugal cooking began with the purchase of a free range local large chicken for the grand sum of £13.50.
Agreed, that sort of outlay doesn't immediately strike as frugal. But I looked at the other chickens in the supermarket and decided against them. The Essentials range birds looked scrawny and unappetising. And they were definitely not free range. We have been keeping chickens now for long enough to know that they are inquisitive, active creatures who are happiest when they are scratching around in new piles of stuff to explore. Our coop and run are easily larger than the (commercial) legal minimum size, and our chooks hate being cooped up in there for any great length of time. More to the point, the Essentials range chooks were only half the price and would just possibly do us for two meals where it looked to me as though the free range large bird would last all week. So I bought one.
When I got it home I cut it up into pieces and make a stock with the carcass and various stock vegetables. That was later turned into chicken and sweet corn soup and gravy.
One chicken fillet I butterflied and then flattened. Then I cut it into two fillets and wrapped them each in baking parchment with some basil leaves, a little chopped garlic and some fresh lime juice, then I more or less poached them in the oven. We had them with baby potatoes and various green vegetables. The lime juice had turned into a lovely, herby, garlicky sauce
We had one thigh each, de-boned and stuffed with a home made dried apricot stuffing, which I then baked. We had those with more potatoes and more vegetables, with a little gravy.
The second fillet I chopped up and we had it stir fried with lots of vegetables, noodles and a lemon sauce.
The legs I just roasted and we had those with a huge big salad.
We had the chicken wings with some more salad for lunch mid-week. And, of course, the chicken and corn soup for other lunches.
We didn't have chicken on the Thursday because I was at my Japanese class and The Builder fetched for himself. But I reckon we got around 14 or so individual meals from that chicken. And we already had the potatoes and the store cupboard ingredients so the only additional cost was a few vegetables and the salad. I made the bread we had with the lunches and we had home made fruit loaves for our "sweet" courses. So what, about £1.50 - £2.00 per person per meal I think.
Was a very delicious week. And much more frugal than it would have been had I bought one of the scrawny, Essentials chooks.
I remember having a disagreement with a workmate over this matter. The chicken I usually buy costs around £13 for 2.5kg (so not a small bird!)and she didn't believe I could get around ~15 meals out of it. When I asked her how many people her £5 tiny supermarket chicken fed she said she could only get 3 meals out of it. We don't have chicken every week, but when we do we make sure it's decent.
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