If you are buying boneless skinless
chicken breasts then you are basically saying that you don't love
your family, and rather than spend money on them you would like to
flush it all down the toilet.
I buy whole chicken at 89 cents per pound at the grocery store. Even if you buy bone-in, skin on-thighs, it will cost you nearly twice as much, boneless skinless breasts cost over 3 times as much, and that's the store brand! The brand name “premium” chicken tenders cost $5.39 per pound, that's six times as much!
I cook an - approximately - 5lb chicken once a week. That works out to between $4 and $5 ever week, so lets say (for simplicity) $4.50 times 52 weeks in a year and that works out to an annual chicken budget of $234.00. If I was cooking the “premium” brand chicken tenders that works out to $1401.40 per year; and if I'm going to spend that much on meat, I'm going to upgrade to something that goes “moo.”
Maybe
you don't want to cook your chicken whole, I don't blame you. Cooking
a chicken whole does yield (in my opinion) the best flavor, however
it does take a fairly long time and can be frustrating. You obviously
want to save money, but you might want to save some time as well.
Here is the solution; even if you don't cook whole, always buy whole.
And
prepare to get your hands dirty.
To
begin dismantling your chicken; grasp the drumstick firmly in your
hand and begin to cut the skin connecting the thigh to the rest of
the carcass. Once you have done this, put your hands underneath the
hips and feel for the joint connecting the leg. Push upward on the
joint while pulling downward on the leg until you hear a sickening
“pop!” and then you may proceed to cut the leg away from the
body. Repeat on the other side.
Once
your bird looks like this, turn your attention to the wings. Similar
procedure; just pop them out of joint and cut them away, no need to
be super precise.
Now
that the bird looks like this, turn your attention to a set of
kitchen shears and – if you are disturbed by the sounds of bones
cracking – some ear plugs, because this is the part where it goes a
bit Dexter. Use your shears to cut from the back of the ribs, up to
the wish-bone, underneath the wing-joint. Once the breasts are
separated from the spine, use the shears again to cut down the keel
bone and when you are done it should look like this:
Hungry
yet?
Good.
Because I want to take my money saving point even farther. I bought
this chicken and enough vegetables to make a meal for just over $12,
but I'm not going to make a meal out of it. I'm going to make 3.
First
I seared and roasted the chicken, like this:
And
we ate both legs and half a breast. So the next day, I took the spine
and both wings to make stock, which looks like this:
(Tip
for making stock; you could make 2 quarts of stock out of one chicken
spine and 2 wings and a handful of vegetables, OR you could walk away
to go help a friend with a project, get horribly injured, pack your
wound with cayenne pepper and go to Redimed; where you will spend
several hours waiting to be treated in a supply closet by people who
don't understand how health insurance works only to come home -hours
later- to find 1 quart of
perfect, clear, rich, beautifully reduced chicken stock. Either way, its
cool.)
Finally,
the day after that, I made soup using everything that was left of the
chicken and vegetables I bought 3 days previously.
That
soup will make 4 meals for me, but I didn't want to brag and say I
could make 5 meals for $12, so I'll eat 2 servings and freeze the
rest for a time when I'm hungry and lazy and not desperate to make
content for my food blog.
Join
us next week when we save even more money by slaughtering our own
chicken!
TL;DNR? Have it shouted at you on Twitter.
Image Credit: good pictures by Thomas Seabold and Aisha Malik-Seabold, bad pictures by Colin Gray.
TL;DNR? Have it shouted at you on Twitter.
Image Credit: good pictures by Thomas Seabold and Aisha Malik-Seabold, bad pictures by Colin Gray.
No comments:
Post a Comment