Do you ever have leftover BBQ chook?

[Astrid]

I have a couple of budget recipe books and have noticed a number of the recipes call for 1 cup or 1 1/2 cups of shredded BBQ chicken. Now obviously part of budget cooking is making good use of leftovers, but this one leftover we rarely have. For us it tends to be a dinner after shopping, so we make up chicken and salad rolls or grab a bag of oven fries. The sometimes is enough leftover to make sandwich for DH's lunch, which takes priority.

So I was wondering, those of you with 4 or more in your family, do you ever have left over BBQ chook, or if you do, is there even enough to make up a cup or more? I am wondering whether we just eat too much.

[Rouge]

Depends on the size of the chook, a large definitely anything less than that no. My kids don't eat much meat they aren't big eaters as a whole so maybe that's why?

[briggsy's girl]

mum will go and buy small amounts of the bbq chook at the deli at our local shop to make stuff like this. i know another friend will buy a chook, shred and freeze it. we tend to get two meals and a little left over for sandwiches from a bbq chicken. though i'll admit, the last time we bought one, the size had dropped dramatically! we worked out it was cheaper to buy breast fillets on special, cook it (we wrap it in foil and bake in the oven - has no skin for that flavour though) and use, rather than buying a precooked bbq chicken now!

we are lucky in that we have a lenard's chicken not too far away and they've had breast fillets for less than $7 a kilo all month, so we have stocked up. it has to work out better when you get can 1.5-2kg of chicken for similar price to a bbq chook...

[Astrid]

Our youngest has started to eat more and she really loves chicken.

It is frustrating when they refer to it in recipes, I had to buy chicken to cook up as there was one recipe I really wanted to try. They need to have an alternate ingredient listed.

[Floweryfields]

Being single, yes I do, but I use it for lunches, or quiche or something.
I am a bit tight when it comes to the BBQ chook purchase - I tend to only buy when they've got a broken one they are selling off cheap! They are always properly cooked because they've broken in half when getting them out of the oven!

[suse]

I know it's not what you are asking, but when I need a smallish amount of BBQ chook for a recipe I just get a 1/4 or 1/2. I prefer the breast-meat anyway, so even though it works out more expensive, there's no waste.

ETA: or, if a recipe calls for a cup or so of bbq chook, I just poach a small breast fillet and shred that instead.

[Rouge]

Another thing to do is get the 2 chicken specials when buying chickens to roast yourself, and roast two and shred the chicken of one and freeze it (this is something my mum used to do).

[Astrid]

We have such limited freezer space, otherwise I would do that, with buying extra. Actually I have never noticed Coles having a 2 chook special. Is it a Woolworths thing?

[AliBaby]

We never have any leftover, but in saying that, the chickens we get seem to be really small even though theya re marked large or family!

We do give the dogs all the skin and faty bits of the chicken so literally there is none left!

[Rouge]

Another thing to do is get the 2 chicken specials when buying chickens to roast yourself, and roast two and shred the chicken of one and freeze it (this is something my mum used to do).

[Netix]

I used to get the roast chooks from safeway in the evenings, when they would be on special, and shred all the meat off and freeze it in lots. I just don't think Safeway do this clearance of fresh foods anymore. ?

Between the Man and I we would sometimes knock over a whole chicken between us, so I don't think I can say you're eating too much! I think a chook between four people is very reasonable.

[Fleur]

Nope, we never have leftover chook. I have to make one stretch.

[Laranna]

As there is just the 3 of us eating, we usually have enough left over for DH to take a roast chicken sandwich the next day. Not a lot of leftovers. I rarely buy the BBQ chooks as they seem so small for the $$$.

I remember the chooks use to bigger as mum could feed our family of six and still have leftovers. These days she goes the lamb roasts instead to feed us all for Sunday lunch.

[{sarah}]

Rouge, the fresh ones will tend to be bigger because the companies get a bigger profit from fresh over frozen.

Astrid, chicken prices are calculated at a per kilo rate, so the size doesn't make a difference to the profit, but because they get a bigger profit for fresh chickens it makes more sense to keep the bigger ones fresh & freeze the smaller ones IYKWIM.

[Astrid]

I understand that the sale price per kilo would be the same, but the cost may not be. (Sorry this is the Economics/Business training in me). The cost to raise the chook would not be the same for each 100grams in weight it puts on. Costs are not linear. There would be a point where it would be not profitable to raise a chook beyond a certain age.

[Trillian]

I have a couple of budget recipe books and have noticed a number of the recipes call for 1 cup or 1 1/2 cups of shredded BBQ chicken. Now obviously part of budget cooking is making good use of leftovers, but this one leftover we rarely have. For us it tends to be a dinner after shopping, so we make up chicken and salad rolls or grab a bag of oven fries. The sometimes is enough leftover to make sandwich for DH's lunch, which takes priority.

So I was wondering, those of you with 4 or more in your family, do you ever have left over BBQ chook, or if you do, is there even enough to make up a cup or more? I am wondering whether we just eat too much.

Astrid, if I was going to make something that specifically asked for that much BBQ chook I would have to buy one. We need 2-3 BBQ chooks to feed all of us for a meal so there are no leftovers. I just buy them now specifically for cold meat/lunches, not buy one and use it with the expectation that there will be enough left over.

They are more bantam sized these days though LOL. But there are no 'frankenchickens' Larger chickens are a result of selective breeding to only breed from hens which are large themselves. Plus there is the whole 'harvesting' of smaller chickens to meet a particular market. When we sell our sheep at market, we have to 'grow' our lambs to meet what the buyers are after, otherwise they either wont buy them, or they wont pay a premium for them. So we would produce what we called 'supermarket lambs', that is, lambs of the right size that the big supermarket buyers were after, which were a lot smaller than something a butcher would buy. But lately the trend seems to have changed and the supermarkets are after heavier lambs with more fat on them. It would probably be a bit different when dealing with chickens because the companies that produce the chickens are also growing them, but they would still be dictating the size that they are turning them off at.

And Astrid, you are exactly right when you say

There would be a point where it would be not profitable to raise a chook beyond a certain age.

That makes a huge difference. Again we see this with sheep. Some farmers sell lambs for record prices, but they may have spent an extra $50 per head to get them to that size and get the top dollar, thus reducing their over-all profit margin. The trick is to turn them off at the best possible size to keep your overheads to a minimum and therefore get the best profit margin. This would definitely be applied to chicken production considering that the bulk of what they eat has to be brought at a cost to the producer.

Sorry to take the thread OT, but it may help some people understand how these things work.

[Astrid]

Thanks for a bit of an inside look a the food production industry Trillian.