That sounds disgusting. “Falling apart tender” chicken is always overcooked, in my experience. Yeah, I’ll keep some jars of peanut butter as an emergency food supply, not canned chicken.
Is canned chicken already cooked, or do you have to process it further? Because canned duck can be marvelous (it must not necessarily be canned, but it can be):
It is thoroughly cooked and it falls apart tender, and it is not digusting at all!
The one I linked is already cooked, stored in brine, and that’s about it. So chicken, probably some loose fat and gelatin in the brine, and that’s it. Ingredients are chicken, water, salt. So the Confit you’re talking about is worlds ahead in seasoning and cooking technique. Probably an apples to oranges comparison. I’m sure that if someone wanted to make an amazing canned chicken, or did some sort of home canned Cornish game hen, it could be done and well, but this product sure doesn’t seem to qualify.
It is certainly not duck confit. Here ya go, cued up:
I have never heard of anyone trying this stuff. I only know of it because of the internet.
Actually, I have a close friend who bought a pair of these during early lockdown days. He ended up eating one of them just to get them out of the pantry and said “it was far less disgusting than you think.” Pretty much he pulled the meat apart and used it in a stir fry and a gumbo, and then the rest was made into. . . you guess it, stock.
It wasn’t good enough to want to use the second, so it was donated to a local food pantry.
It’s fully cooked, as it is canned. Anything canned is fully cooked (and beyond) due to the canning process- otherwise it could spoil inside the can.
So I tried making stock / broth with a whole raw chicken yesterday- just popped it in the instant pot with onion, celery, bay leaves, thyme, and peppercorns.
The result was ok, but definitely different than when I make stock using the carcasses of two already cooked chickens. It seemed more ‘chickeny’ and yet more thin and light somehow. It didn’t have the silkiness that all the rendered collagen from twice as many bones makes. I think browning the outside of the chicken first would have made for a deeper, more flavorful stock or broth, but it certainly wasn’t bad. I made chicken and dumplings out of the shredded chicken and broth and it turned out terrific.
In my experience, using a whole raw chicken has a minor disadvantage to the silken mouthfeel, mostly because (in the comparatively short cooking time of a instant pot) you get much less actual bone exposure. It works fine in a slow cooker, as long as you break the chicken apart about halfway through the cooking.
It isn’t worse, but you just don’t get the same exposure to render the goodness out of the bones, as they’re shielded by all the delicious meat! My best compromise is to grab the cleaver, a cutting board, and to section up the raw chicken roughly. But I still prefer to use carcass + bone bag savings if I want truly gelatinous stock.
Yeah, cutting up the chicken, and then maybe browning the pieces, would have made for better stock. But you sure can’t beat the easy-peasy factor of just tossing in a whole chicken, for results that are still very good.
I agree, being the lazy sort of being I am. But, since I don’t really care for the texture of boiled meat, it is a non issue. If I’m using a whole chicken, I’ve damn well roasted the thing and am using the carcass. Again, the only time I use raw chicken is the few occasions I got behind on my stock making and in that case, it was value packs of thighs (or prior to wing craziness, wings) going into the stockpot/slowcooker/pressure cooker after a quick de-skinning (for most at least). Generally, in those cases the meat is a waste product that gets made into cat fud.
The cats greatly appreciate my lack of taste.
I cleave it when raw. And you get plenty of bone exposure. If the resultant stock doesn’t gel when refrigerated, you either didn’t cook it enough, used too much liquid, or didn’t reduce enough. I personally do not like my chicken stock roasted — I like it nice and clean. So if that’s not what you’re going for, you do need to get some browning on it and/or your vegetables.
Yup, that’s what I said in my second paragraph.
I also find just a touch, say a teaspoon or so per quart of a good cider vinegar or even lemon juice helps bring out the flavors and also seems to up the collagen extraction. The last could all be in my head though.
That’s what I get for reading the first paragraph and a sentence into the second
To revise my opinion of the whole-chicken stock I made, that initial review was immediately after making the stock and trying some in a coffee cup. The next day, after taking the leftover stock out of the refrigerator, I noticed that it was nicely gelatinous, so it actually did render out quite a good amount of collagen. I think my description as ‘thin and light, without the silkiness of bone broth’ was partly because it was made from a raw chicken, no prior cooking or browning at all, so I was not used to that ‘clean’ flavor pulykamell mentions. Also, I don’t think I adequately salted the first batch I tested. Like I said, it was terrific in the chicken and dumplings, being well seasoned in that.
So I tried a second coffee cup of just stock, this time well-salted, and I thought it was the very essence of chickeny deliciousness. The main drawback to making stock from a whole chicken is that you either have to sacrifice a chicken, or be ok with boiled chicken meat. Which I was ok with for what I used it for-- especially putting the shredded chicken in the broth made from it. The next day I made a very tasty, very easy spicy chicken soup out of the leftover broth and chicken.
Yep, I heard that too, so I religiously add a spoonful of apple cider vinegar every time, even though I don’t really know if it makes any difference at all.
Yeah, I end up using chicken legs or quarters (which are often on sale for something like 79 cents a pound) for this reason. I don’t feel quite as guilty not using the meat. (But I still end up scraping it off the bone to mix in with the dog food). And I should note that roasted chicken stock is delicious – I just find the white stock a bit more versatile for what I typically cook. I usually roast my beef stocks, but not my chicken. Just personal preference, no judgment on one being “better” than another. If I have roasted chicken, I do still save the bones and put it in the next round of stock making.
I can understand posters saying they don’t like the resulting boiled chicken meat, but I actually didn’t mind it, even apart from mixing with the broth. It was falling off the bone tender and therefore it shredded, or ‘pulled’ very easily. And I thought it still tasted fine; the broth-making didn’t totally leach out all chicken flavor. I could see mixing in taco or BBQ seasoning and making pulled chicken tacos or sandwiches with it.
Yeah, meat that is “falling off the bone tender” is almost always overcooked to my tastes. I guess some cuts of beef can stand up to that and still be good, but certainly not chicken.
I’ve made chicken broth starting with raw meat, and I’ve always tasted the meat, and then decided to throw it away. I might reserve a little to throw into a chicken soup where it still adds texture and the broth supplies the chicken flavor. But i don’t want to eat it in any dish where it’s a significant component, and certainly not one where it’s expected to taste like chicken.
As a result, i usually make stock from leftover bits of roast chicken.
My absolute favorite, though, is a stock made about half and half from roasted leftovers and fresh raw wings, feet, and backs.
That’s true; they’re often weaker than you’d think. But that’s the thing; most of the time we’re not making stock/broth intentionally; we just happen to have a chicken carcass left over, and turning it into stock/broth is better than just throwing it away, even if the result isn’t optimal.
Sure, tastes vary, but it depends on what you’re going for too. I mean, shredded or pulled chicken is a thing. The main concern with overcooked chicken is that it gets dried out, but that’s not such a concern if you’re cooking it in a crock pot or instant pot with liquid. But If I’m grilling chicken, it comes right off the grill as soon as the white meat gets north of 160F. A thick steak or beef roast? No hotter in the center than 125. Beef brisket? 190-195 to render collagen and get it tender. Pork loin? 145 tops. Pork shoulder? 190-195 so it’s nice and pullable / shreddable.
Yep, my wife picks up a rotisserie chicken when she goes to Costco and it makes a nice few weekday meals. Then I like to make stock when I have two rotisserie carcasses to really get every last bit of nutrition and goodness out of the chickens. I’ll continue to do that, though if I’m making something that can use shreddable chicken, like chicken & dumplings or homemade soup, the raw whole chicken method has proved to work quite well, I thought.
This sounds like a great way to mix it up and get the best of both worlds; maybe I’ll try this next time I make more stock.
Oh yeah, we definitely do that. If we’re planning on chicken salad, chicken soup, chicken and dumplings, or anything else that essentially calls for boiled chicken, it becomes stock first, then the meat is removed and goes into the dish along with the stock.