Fried Chicken for Sunday dinner is an American tradition, one so beloved that Herbert Hoover used the slogan “A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage” as his campaign slogan in the 1928 presidential election. That year my Southern grandma would send my mother out to the yard to catch Sunday dinner and wring the chicken’s neck, a process they accomplished by whirling the chicken around the way we used to whirl pails of water.
Mom grew up to become famous for her Fried Chicken. When she and Dad first married he bragged loud and often to his mother, my Northern grandma, about Mom’s Fried Chicken, so Grandma set out to duplicate it. She started by par-boiling the chicken. It was not a hit. She did not have to send any of us out to the yard to catch the chicken. The butcher did that for her. She did cut it up herself though.
North or South, 1928 or 1948, both of my grandmas served their chicken with a variety of pieces – breasts, legs, thighs, wings – because a chicken comes with all of those things. Or at least it did, until food purveyors decided they could make more money by selling the American public just the parts and keeping the less desirable bits to go into chicken patties, chicken nuggets, chicken stock and pet food.
In 1928 chicken belonged in every pot because it was one of the more expensive meats, a treat for Sunday dinner As a friend of mine learned last night while standing at the meat counter intending to buy a steak for dinner, today chicken is often the best buy in the market, even already cut up chicken.
In these tough economic times, it is important to many of us to maximize our food dollar. One way to do that is to cut up that chicken yourself, just like my grandmas did. And let me tell you a little secret here: you can get at least three meals from a single 3-4 pound chicken if you cut it up yourself! I like to wait until whole chicken is on sale for a good price per pound (you want broiler-fryers) and then buy several. You can also find good buys on bulk packs of whole chicken at Sam’s Club and BJ’s. Bring them home, grab a sharp knife, a clean non-porous cutting board and have at it. First, rinse your chicken and dry it with paper towels. Then cut your chicken into parts. Each chicken will take about the same 3 minutes that it takes to watch this video:
Unless you want to make stock immediately, freeze the wing tips and back section in a large ziplock bag. Sort the remaining pieces out and freeze whatever you don’t intend to use in the next day or so. One convenient way to wrap the pieces is to place each piece into an individual plastic sandwich bag and then place all of the pieces into a larger ziplock freezer bag.
Remember I said you can get at least three meals?
1. Remove the breast meat from the bone and the meat from one chicken is sufficient for a stir fry for four people. This is how you bone a chicken breast. You will want to simply remove the skin.
Granny’s Easy Stir-Fry
2 boneless chicken breasts, partially frozen (about 1 hour in the freezer) then sliced as thinly as possible
2 or 3 small to medium carrots, sliced thin on the bias
1 large onion, chopped or sliced
1/2 to 1 each green & red peppers, sliced into thin strips (or all green/red)
several mushrooms, sliced thin
about 1 cup of small broccoli florets
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1/2 to 1 tablespoon finely chopped ginger
1 or 2 small, dried hot peppers (optional)
If you feel like it:
Sliced bamboo shoots, water chestnuts, peanuts or cashews
2 tablespoons oil (peanut is best, but any vegetable oil will do)Sauce:
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1/4 cup water or chicken stock
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon mirinHeat your skillet or wok (I use a large cast iron skillet) then add half the oil. Heating your skillet first causes the oil to spread further so you need less. Add the chicken and stir over high heat 2-3 minutes until the chicken pieces have all turned white. Remove from the pan and set aside. Add the remaining oil, then add the garlic and ginger and any hot peppers you are using. Stir about 15 seconds, then add in all of the raw vegetables except the mushrooms. Cook over high heat about 2-3 minutes until the onion is translucent, stirring constantly. If you are using any of the optional ingredients or mushrooms, add those now and stir fry one more minute.
Stir together all of the sauce ingredients to form a slurry. Pour over the vegetables in the pan and stir. The sauce will come together in about a minute. If it is too thick for your taste or you want more sauce add a bit more water or chicken stock. Serve with rice or noodles.
Notice that all of the vegetables used in this dish are in very small amounts. Feel free to increase them or decrease them according to what you have on hand. Zucchini makes a nice addition if you happen to have some handy – one small to medium is about right – as does bok choy or baby bok choy.
That same amount of meat is also enough for chicken tacos or chicken quesadillas for four.
2. The legs and thighs will provide adequate meat for a chicken stew. I make mine with potatoes, onion, carrots, celery, chicken stock, peas, bay leaf, salt & pepper. If you want to be generous with the meat, use three leg/thigh sections. If you are stretching the food dollar, the legs/thighs from a single chicken will be fine. Add dumplings or serve over biscuits for a full meal.
Granny’s Dumplings
If you intend to serve dumplings with your stew make sure that you have quite a bit more broth than you might otherwise as the dumplings will absorb quite a bit.2 cups flour
3 tablespoons fat (this can be any shortening or lard you have handy)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milkStir together the dry ingredients, then rub in the shortening until the mixture looks like cornmeal. I use the tips of my fingers just like you would to make pie crust, but you could simply pulse it in the food processor 4 or 5 times. Quickly and rapidly stir in the milk. Drop the dumplings by large spoonfuls into bubbling stew. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to very low. The dumplings are done when they look dry, about 20 minutes.
3. Use the leftover stew for a chicken casserole.
Spread the leftover stew in a greased casserole dish. Mix up a batch of dumpling batter (oddly enough, dumplings are exactly the same as drop biscuits) and spoon that over the top of the stew. Bake at 350 about 40 minutes until the biscuit top is brown. If you prefer you can use only 2/3 cup of milk, stir the dough rapidly with a fork to form a ball, knead the dough exactly 12 times, pat it out about 1/2 inch thick and cut into biscuits.
Waste Not, want not!
