Making Broth: Things to do with the leftover meat

When you make full-fledged chicken broth, that is with meat (not just bones), you wind up with a good amount of meat that has little to no character. Yet, if you're like me, you cannot throw it away. It's food.

Usually I just make chicken salad. The chicken just becomes filler, but if you add the right things the composed salad will have flavor.

Sometimes I re-fry the meat in a very hot pan with onions and other seasonings. The results can go well in a taco or stuffed in a pita or over a bed of rice or noodles (depending on the seasoning).

Today I made broth and had two full chickens worth of meat leftover. Some of it will invariably become chicken salad tomorrow. But, tonight I had a little fun.

I topped a piece of puff pastry that was threatened by freezer burn with a caramelized red onion, fresh thyme, and chicken. I gave it all a liberal hit of olive oil and into a 400 deg. oven. Fifteen minutes later and a squeeze of lemon and we had a very nice chicken and onion tart:



As I mentioned, the chicken itself doesn't retain much character, but the olive oil, thyme, and lemon combined with the blast of heat and the onions produced a nice result.

So, what do you do with the broth meat by-product?

Best,
Michael

Do you not take the meat off the bones just after it's cooked? When I make whole-chicken broth, I typically remove the meat after simmering about 10-20 min, remove the bones and skin and return them to the pot. Then I have perfectly poached chicken and a lovely rich broth.

However, just today I made broth with the bones I'd saved from various dinners and frozen, and I found myself slurping the meat off then - well-soaked in stock it wasn't too bad. I wonder if you could make some kind of cold chicken in aspic using the broth and the meat.

Mhays wrote:However, just today I made broth with the bones I'd saved from various dinners and frozen

A few weeks ago I cut up a bunch o chicken for the smoker, three birds into halves and 40 wings into drumette, fling and tip. Froze the backs and tips for a later date, which turned out to be today. Ellen, the soup meister in our house, woke up feeling slightly under the weather and had a nice solid broth going by 9am, which we had for breakfast.

Far as other uses for soup chicken, I typically eat about half with coarse salt as it comes out of the pot and make chicken salad or sandwiches with the rest. Michael's chicken onion tart sounds terrific.

Enjoy,
Gary

Mhays wrote:Do you not take the meat off the bones just after it's cooked? When I make whole-chicken broth, I typically remove the meat after simmering about 10-20 min, remove the bones and skin and return them to the pot. Then I have perfectly poached chicken and a lovely rich broth.

However, just today I made broth with the bones I'd saved from various dinners and frozen, and I found myself slurping the meat off then - well-soaked in stock it wasn't too bad. I wonder if you could make some kind of cold chicken in aspic using the broth and the meat.

No, the meat stays in the picture until finished. I usually go about four hours. If you're just using bones, you're making stock, not broth.

If you want to make an aspic, you'll need to go a step further and make a consommé by clarifying with a protein raft. You also have to make sure it's perfectly de-fatted.

Best,
Michael

eatchicago wrote:If you want to make an aspic, you'll need to go a step further and make a consommé by clarifying with a protein raft. You also have to make sure it's perfectly de-fatted.

Here's a thread documenting my adventures in consommé making. If anyone is so inclined, there is lots of good info there.

Mhays wrote:Do you not take the meat off the bones just after it's cooked? When I make whole-chicken broth, I typically remove the meat after simmering about 10-20 min, remove the bones and skin and return them to the pot. Then I have perfectly poached chicken and a lovely rich broth.

This is what I do if I want to use the poached chicken. I leave it in the broth/stock for 30-40 minutes, then remove it and finish the cooking with the bones. If I want to leave the chicken in the whole time, then I do and just dump the leftover meat.

I make non mayo chicken salad with celery hearts, shallot, olive oil, red wine vinegar and load of fennel spice blend (fennel, corriander, white pepper and salt). Meat is better if you let it cool in the broth overnight.

Babaluch