Count your chickens

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Count your chickens

Super soup: chicken, leek and pearl barley broth. Photograph by Alan Robinson.

By Mike Robinson

Monday, 08 September 2008

Mike Robinson balances the price of free range with a sense of economy by cooking one chicken three ways, ending up with eight main-course helpings to make the most out of the bird. Here's his first method:

Normally at this time of year I would start waxing lyrical about partridges and grouse, writing recipes of great heartiness and generally getting excited about the coming autumn. The truth is, I have got a little gamed out this year and have a yen instead to cook with more everyday ingredients. So, I am going to provide recipes for the meat that has recently been a most contentious issue, the chicken.

Chicken is an emotive issue these days. Every time you turn on the television another chef is campaigning for better chicken welfare, and quite right too. The truth is, as both Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver have pointed out, super-cheap chicken is dreadful, tasteless pap, that had a short “quality” of life that was somewhere below a 19th-century slave ship in terms of happiness. The problem is, we regard chicken as being so plentiful and cheap that the cost of a real, free-range bird, slow-grown with a great quality of life, is seen as outrageous. The truly outrageous thing is that supermarkets can sell a 3lb or 4lb bird for £2.50. When you bring profit margins into play, can you imagine what they pay the producer?

A really good chicken should be a treat. I love chicken – I think roasted it one of the best comfort meals there is – and do not begrudge the cost. On the other hand, I am a chef and I have a keen sense of economy, so I want to get the most out of it.

Today I am working with a free-range bird of about 4lb that came from an excellent producer. The subject has fine, plump breasts and strong, well-fleshed thighs that have obviously done some walking, as well as a good amount of fat. It cost around £9.50 from a good butcher who knew where it had come from.

I am going to cook the bird in three ways, ending up with eight main-course helpings. This represents a per person price of less than £1.20. So, how do we do it? Let’s start with a delicious broth.

The Carcass:

Chicken, leek and
pearl barley broth

SERVES 4
1 chicken carcass
2 wing-tips
2 drumsticks
2 litres (3 pints) water
4 leeks
2 sticks of celery
1 carrot
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 potatoes, peeled
100g (31/2oz) pearl barley
1 tbsp bouillon powder
Salt and pepper

This is one of those heartwarming and delicious concoctions that really cheers you up. You have a healthy, delicious broth that will easily feed four, as well as the huge satisfaction of cooking something that effectively costs nothing.

Take a heavy casserole pot and plonk the chicken carcass and bits in it. Cover them with the water and simmer for 40 minutes. When all the meat has fallen off the bones (you may have to pick it off the drumsticks and wings) throw the carcass away, leaving a killer stock of chickeny loveliness.

Chop the vegetables and add them to the broth along with the pearl barley and bouillon, then simmer gently for 60 to 70 minutes. Season at the end and serve when the barley is well cooked. Eat with big chunks of brown bread and drink lots of real ale for a properly rustic feed.