Elastic Chicken...

Every blogger who has a frugal heart has to sometime over their life time do an elastic chicken post. So here is mine...with a difference. This is how I make 2 chickens feed my family for 2 meals, make chicken 3 litres of stock and feed my doggies 1 meal.

I generally only by whole chickens these days as they are about R15 cheaper than chicken pieces and if you know how to cut up a chicken you can get so much more value for your money. So once I have taken the 4 wings, breasts of 1 chicken, 4 drums, 4 thighs I put one set of breasts into the fridge for the next days soup.

The caracasses are made into chicken stock. The stock I use in soups and risottos. The left over stock bones and skin are given to the dogs.

The pieces can then be made into any chicken dish - a casserole, a curry or something similar. This week I made a traditional malay curry. I served it on lentils as versus rice as we are still eating a low carb diet.

Cape Malay Curry

Fry in some olive oil: 1 chopped onion, 5 chopped tomatoes, 1 tablespoon ginger and garlic, 2 chopped green peppers.

When those are soft add a tablespoon Garam Masala, 1/2 teapsoon chilli powder, 1 tablespoon each of cumin, corainder and fennel seeds. Add 1 full piece of stick cinnamon and 2 Star Anise. Allow to sizzle.

Add your chicken pieces and brown. Then add 2 cups of water. Allow to cook until almost done. Right at the end I add a can of coconut milk to make it like a Korma.

Chicken and Mushroom Soup
The next day I used the remaining 2 breasts, 1 pkt of happy hog bacon and a punnet of mushrooms and the delicious homemade stock for this chicken and mushroom soup.

Fry 1 chopped onion, a tablespoon of garlic, a sliced pkt of bacon until cooked. Add the 2 sliced chicken breasts and mushrooms and brown.

Then add two tablespoons of flour and stir to cover the ingredients in the pot.

Add 1 litre of stock and a pinch of fresh Thyme and allow to simmer until slightly thickened. Taste for salt and pepper then serve.