Family chicken | 4Food | Channel4.com

Date Published:: 09/01/2008

Making a chicken last three days for a family of four is easy when you know how, says Catherine de Abaitua

I've bought my chicken this week– he's a good size, 1.9kg and cost me about £12. I have bought organic chickens for a decade now, and the taste and texture are so much better than that of an intensively farmed bird.

Out of a big chicken I will get at least three adult meals plus lots for the younger people in the household, nine-month old Alfred and six-year old Alice - and maybe a sandwich at lunchtime.

Stock is what makes a chicken last as you are getting every last bit of flavour and goodness from it and if I'm going to spend over £10 I may as well. Stock is the real treat to having a whole chicken, without it gravy, soup or risotto just aren't right.

Home-made stock is great for children's meals as it contains no salt like stock cubes, or even some shop-bought fresh stock. If I'm not going to use all the stock I have made I keep it in ice-cube sized portions in the freezer so I've got a couple to throw into the gravy for a Sunday roast or defrost more for a paella.

On day one I made a chicken tagine dish. Even though it would normally serve four I just kept the left-over meat for days two and three. I have no qualms about grabbing bones from people's plates for the stock pot, so that night stripped the chicken of its meat and threw the bones into a stock pot along with an onion, a carrot, a stick of celery, some parsley stalks, neck (the liver, heart and other purple stuff is no good for stock and could probably go into a ragu sauce instead), peppercorns and bay.

I covered it with cold water and it simmered for a few hours whilst I watched old episodes of 'House of Cards' on the telly. I turned it off before going to bed and strained it the next day through a muslin into a bowl.

There was no fat to skim off so it was ready to use for chicken noodle soup (spicy for grown-ups, not so for children) where I also used about half the left-over chicken, shredded. I made a spicy version for me and my husband, but the kids got chicken and sweetcorn noodle soup without soy sauce or chilli. In fact Alfred has several portions of this lined up for him in the freezer. I saved some stock for the third night to use with the pasta. When I make a creamy sauce a bit of lemon juice and a ladleful of stock makes it a little less cloying and it is a fresher dish.