Are you chicken?

[Ham]

How do you buy you chicken?

I've long known that portions are expensive, but even so I have bought portioned chicken. Miss Ham has been on a high protein diet for a while and chews her way through a mountain of chicken breast, which I have been buying. I buy the "offers" at Waitrose, which ends up somewhere around £9/Kilo, pretty much standard from what I can see (although Iceland come in cheaper).

I've done it before but today I bought the 3 1.2 Kg Chickens for £10 and decided to weigh the outcome. For £10:

1.2 Kg breast meat (skinless boneless)
1.2 Kg legs
A great pot of stock with some meat off the bones for a couple of sandwiches.

Remind me again how much I pay for breast meat on its own?

[perpetual dan]

At the butcher I often buy thighs on their own for a stew. I can't remember what they cost.

[Mrs Pingu]

I don't really eat chicken on it's 'own' but prefer it 'in things' IYSWIM. I always used to buy chicken breast for making chicken in white wine sauce with pasta until I went to cook school where they suggested that using chicken thigh is better because it doesn't dry out the same.
I tried it and was converted (yes,even though you're cooking it in a lake of sauce), more tasty too.

[hellymedic]

Whole small chickens (1.35kg) from Sainsbury's: £4.50 each or 3 for £10.

About £2.50 per kg. Includes skin and bones. No use if you want Happy Chickens.

I stopped buying chicken crowns and  breast 'joints' when I realised that a whole chicken cost the same as these items but would provide more than twice as much food.

[pcolbeck]

At the butcher I often buy thighs on their own for a stew. I can't remember what they cost.

+1 thighs are tastier. I tend to buy a mixture as Mrs Pcolbeck and Pcolbeck junior like breast better.

[Pickled Onion]

Whole small chickens (1.35kg) from Sainsbury's: £4.50 each or 3 for £10.

About £2.50 per kg. Includes skin and bones. No use if you want Happy Chickens.

Indeed. It is quite astonishing that it's possible to rear, feed, slaughter, process, package, transport and retail a whole hen for an end price of £3 odd, with each step in the process making a profit. Can it really be good to eat, in any sense of the word?

[numbnuts]

I tried just buying the eggs to see if it would grow up, but it didn't work. 

[Ham]

Whole small chickens (1.35kg) from Sainsbury's: £4.50 each or 3 for £10.

About £2.50 per kg. Includes skin and bones. No use if you want Happy Chickens.

Indeed. It is quite astonishing that it's possible to rear, feed, slaughter, process, package, transport and retail a whole hen for an end price of £3 odd, with each step in the process making a profit. Can it really be good to eat, in any sense of the word?

OK I confess. I've only started buying these since needing industrial quantities. I like to think that Waitrose suppliers will have the highest husbandry of any of the type, with possibly less additives? Oh well

[Julian]

I rarely buy meat as we tend to cook veggie food at home.  Have you considered Costco or similar?  I know they do happy chicken.

[perpetual dan]

At the butcher I often buy thighs on their own for a stew. I can't remember what they cost.

Free range chicken at the butcher today was:
£15 a kilo for breasts
£7 a kilo for thighs

[Gattopardo]

Macro do cheap chicken, but then it is in 10 kilo batches.

[Biggsy]

Indeed. It is quite astonishing that it's possible to rear, feed, slaughter, process, package, transport and retail a whole hen for an end price of £3 odd, with each step in the process making a profit. Can it really be good to eat, in any sense of the word?

They are tender (cos the poor things don't live long enough to run around much if they can at all), but taste quite foul.

[Ham]

At the butcher I often buy thighs on their own for a stew. I can't remember what they cost.

Free range chicken at the butcher today was:
£15 a kilo for breasts
£7 a kilo for thighs

I think you may have missed the point. Using Waitrose, Free Range thighs £7 Kilo,  breast £16 Kg, Whole £5.80. Therefore 3Kg whole chicken would cost you £17.40 and provide 1Kg breast (say £15), 1Kg thigh (£7) costing you £5 (25%) more for the benefit of not having the carcass. Not as marked as the first example, but interesting none the less.

[perpetual dan]

Except that I bought half a dozen thighs for a stew, which weighed 700g so about £5. That'll be all the chicken we want this week. A single whole chicken (with a similar amount of meat) was unlikely to be a much better price (I forgot to check what they were, but at Waitrose maybe a 2kg chicken so £11 ish) and would be more work to turn into that meal. If you particularly want breast meat as well then I agree, buy the whole thing.