I roasted a chicken for tea yesterday and removed the breasts - my lot only eat the breast meat. Then I have put the carcass in the fridge overnight as I want to try making soup to reduce the waste. So as I don't want to make soup today should I freeze the carcass or boil it and freeze the stock ?  Also, how do I make stock and how can I get the leg and wing meat into the stock for soup, do I strip the carcass and save it or boil the lot to make stock ? Thanks in advance.

I boil it up complete with meat. then leave to cool and pick meat off
hope that helps.
lea :)

Biol it as is for a few hours and it will just fall apart
You'll need to strain it to get the bones out, especially  the smaller
ones, you can add vegatables etc to the stock and cook them, then freeze ready
to reheat as soup when wanted
I used to do this with the xmas turkey

Biol it as is for a few hours and it will just fall apart<br />You'll need to strain it to get the bones out, especially  the smaller<br />ones, you can add vegatables etc to the stock and cook them, then freeze ready<br />to reheat as soup when wanted <br />I used to do this with the xmas turkey

Oh, want to make some soup now.  Yum!

> Oh, want to make some soup now.  Yum!

It is gorgeous, I do this a couple of times a month :-) I chuck in some plain noodles, little bit of barley and some diced potatoes too.  Nom!

I pick all of the meat off and save in the fridge, then put carcass in pan cover with water add carrot celery onion and herbs, bring to boil and simmer for several hours.
When cool strain, chuck out veg and bones (our friendly fox gets that).

Then you have your stock to which you can add fresh veggies, pearl barley or broth mix will thicken it , you can chuck in a stock cube as well for extra flavour, bring to boil and simmer till veggies are cooked, if you've used pearl barley or broth mix then it'll need to simmer till that is soft, then chuck in the saved chicken and heat through well.

Then train your family to eat the leg and thigh meat after you've made all of the affort to do a roast in the first place ;)

> Then train your family to eat the leg and thigh meat after you've made all of the affort to do a roast in the first place

LOL - just what I was thinking :)

>my lot only eat the breast meat.

But the breast meat is so bland and dull! The thigh is by far the tastiest - don't waste it on the dogs! ;-)

You can freeze the stock, remember and take some of the fat off the top before you use it for soup.

We're another house that only eats the breast, I hate the leg meat, it's so greasy....yuck .

By the way, Lidl do very nice FREE RANGE chickens for just over a fiver.

">We're another house that only eats the breast, I hate the leg meat, it's so greasy....yuck >By the way, Lidl do very nice FREE RANGE chickens for just over a fiver.

So the very nice bit of the Lidl free range chook is the breast and what do you do with the rest?

I buy free range chook because I object to the way the poor things are kept for the cheaper end of the market, subsequently because they are much more expensive I use EVERY bit of them.
Roast Sunday chook becomes Monday's cold chicken chips and peas which becomes bones roasted for stock which becomes big soup with lots of veggies and the final result is bones for the fox

Removing the skin will remove the grease but also the flavour, mind you the fox will love the skin.

If a free range chook costs a fiver I'd wonder where it has free ranged and then also it must be the size of a spadger :-O

I'm a Hugh Fern whatsit person and I'd eat the legs of the chook if it meant they had a better life :)

as it's pre cooked and you've got the entire leg left I would remove the meat from them first to add to the soup later. otherwise the meat will be a bit soggy I would think. boil bones etc with veg, reduce if nec. cool and strain, then chill until set so the fat rises to the top and can be lifted off. if its still liquid rather than jeyy I would reduce it more but thats down to personal preference. You can freeze stock or made soup, though I'm not sure about freezing soup with noodles or pasta in, would they go a bit mushy? (never tried)

BTW, to everyone who's said give the bones to the fox.............what happened to NEVER feeding cooked bones??!! I don't think foxes should be encouraged by feeding but even so I wouldn't want to give them a perforated gut any more than a dog!

> Roast Sunday chook becomes Monday's cold chicken chips and peas

At last!!! Someone else whose favourite Monday meal is the same as mine. With pickled onions too, I hope?

go onto Radio 4 on iplayer, they had someone on Woman's Hour today doing a belter of a chicken soup/stock :-)

Lidl's free range chooks are from Scotland and while not being the largest birds, they certainly aren't small.

I'll have to check them out then as that is a good price :)

As you have so much meat left I would remove that first.  Then take the carcase, skin and any other bits left and put in a roasting tin  and brown off in the oven on a afirly high heat for about 20 mins.  This give more depth of colour and extra flavour to the stock.  To maek the stock put everything form the roasting pan into a big sauce pan, add 1 onion, 1 carrott, 1 leek (all cut in half ) 2 cloves garlic, good pinch of whole black peppercorns and a good pinch of salt.  Cover with cold water, bring to boil, skim off any scum which rises to top then reduce to simmer, cover and cook for at least 1 hour.  Strain into freeer size portions, leave to cool and remove fat from top (it will be jellied at this point which is why it is easier to decant when still liquid.) then seal and freeze.  You can freeze the reserved chicken too, so it can be chopped and added to the stock when it comes to actually making the soup.

">Then take the carcase, skin and any other bits left and put in a roasting tin  and brown off in the oven on a afirly high heat for about 20 mins

Good point I remember the lovely Hugh suggesting that, I keep roasted chicken bones in the freezer ready for boiling up when I want stock

> Then train your family to eat the leg and thigh meat after you've made all of the affort to do a roast in the first place ;-)

I normally keep the left over breast meat and anything else i can get off it for curry/chinese the next day.
However, children's activities meant that there was no point keeping it but in the future i will be stripping  and freezing  it for future use. Why didn't i think of that ?!!!

So i boiled the lot in some water and strained it, then froze it. I will be de-frosting overnight Friday so hopefully we will have a pan of vegetable soup to eat Saturday lunchtime. I will keep your recipes and in future i will add veg etc to the carcass pot.
I even went out and bought soup mix and pearl barley to try - not together though !

Thanks for all of your replies. Does anyone think we need a recipe section on CD ?!
If anyone has got a quick and easy flapjack recipe i would be very grateful. I have got porridge oats, brown sugar and golden syrup !

I usually add raisins and butter to flapjacks, a pinch of salt brings out the flavour, sounds odd but works.

I've just done a batch with a recipe from t'internet. Just waiting for them to cool !   I was in Tesco today and they were doing chickens BOGOF at £4 so grabbed some. Wish I'd got 2 for the freezer now !

Ha ha, I was going to post about Tesco's chicken offer too! I've got my fridge full of them and hubby will butcher them into halves tonight for the dogs!!

I did huge amounts of flapjacks on tuesday, a cake sale in aid of touch rugby team at work......I got the wrong dtuesday, its next week!
Everyone was very happy, flapjacks are loved by most ... :)

Always use butter, syrup and brown sugar though.
Karen.