Recipes with Cooked Chicken Meat

Recipes with Cooked Chicken Meat: Chop, season, and remake your leftovers 100 different ways starting with the recipe and variations below.

This is good, since we're all learning how to cook heritage chicken such as American Bresse, and we don't always get the cooking results we expected. 

Cooking American Bresse chicken, or any heritage chicken, might be scary, because it involves cooking methods that are possibly very different from cooking the familiar grocery store chicken. If the age of the chicken is not matched correctly with the method of cooking used, the cook risks bringing to the table meat that could be very difficult to actually eat.

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We wanted to remove the guesswork from the cooking, so we wrote a page on Ambresse clarifying the how-tos: How to Cook Bresse Chicken. The page presents explanations and cooking directions that are valid for many kinds of heritage meat chickens (not just American Bresse), especially when they are processed at older than 14 weeks of age. 

More good news: This page that you're on now, Recipes with Cooked Chicken Meat, can help you salvage chicken that turned out too tough, stringy, or chewy.

Click here to go to the Tuff-to-Tender Cooked Chicken Recipe.

And of course, you can always use the recipes below to prepare ANY chicken leftovers, including from store-bought chickens.  

You Need Recipes with Cooked Chicken Meat
When your Chicken Turns Out Tough

Learning to cook a really amazing and delicious American Bresse chicken might at first include a few hiccups. It happens. And it might take time to figure things out, which will likely involve quite a few unimpressive chicken dinners.

That is why it helps to have a way to salvage the leftovers from those American Bresse meals that did not turn out as tender as you had hoped. (And there will probably be a LOT of leftovers....) 

Typical reasons for disappointment are:

1. The wrong method of cooking used. You can flour and fry an 11-12 week old cockerel with great success. But by the time a cockerel hits 14 weeks, he'll taste great, but some of his parts are likely to be more dry or chewy than you had hoped, especially the drumsticks.
   
   Old roosters are athletic as all get out, and chip-yer-teeth tough unless cooked for a LONG time, for example, in a crock pot. When done right, the flavor is amazing. The same goes for most old hens. 
   
   Similarly, cockerels older than 16 weeks are already becoming chewy, even if finished with finishing feed. But you'd be cheating yourself of some succulent meals if you put ALL your 16-week-old and older birds into the crock pot!
   
   
2. Failing to 'rest' processed carcasses. Rigor mortis sets in shortly after death. The muscle fibers become tight and stringy if rigor is still present at cooking, no matter the age of the poultry at processing. This is why carcasses need to 'rest' in the refrigerator for 2 - 4 days, until the stiffness of rigor mortis leaves and the muscle fibers are relaxed.

I've poorly cooked way more than a few American Bresse birds. The problem wasn't with the breed or the bird. The problem was me, not having yet figured out the tricks for cooking heritage chickens, like American Bresse. 

So, until I mastered the art of cooking heritage birds, I decided to do what Old Man Campbell has been doing for years.

Old Man Campbell Makes a Fortune on Tough Chicken!

Campbell's^® Soup Company buys retired egg-ranch chickens by the millions and on the cheap. Those old clucks cannot be fried up like a store bought chicken.

After processing, the meat is cooked forever, chopped into very tiny cubes and then turned into chicken noodle soup - broth, noodles, meat, and scraps of carrots. It's delicious, too!

When my own chickens turned out tough or disappointing (which was a LOT in those days!), I didn't give up. But neither did I need to cook the leftovers forever.

My favorite rescue method has been to remove all the meat from the bones, and to follow the Tuff to Tender Recipe below. The resulting savory chicken blend went into the refrigerator or freezer for use in any of a multitude of other recipes.

The bones and remainder of the carcass always go into a broth pot, and probably always will, to be turned into wonderful chicken bone broth, and any of my favorite chicken soup recipes.

Without further ado, here is the....

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Chicken that is not tough, but is simply left over, can be chopped and used in a multitude of ways, including in the Tuff-to-Tender Chicken Recipes on this page. I have used leftovers from more than one oh-so-tender American Bresse chicken to make chicken salad sandwiches or other Tuff-to-Tender recipe variations. They are almost melt-in-your-mouth delicious. 

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If Necessary: Very Tough Chicken Meat May Need Additional Cooking First.

There are several ways to do this, depending on how you hope to use the leftovers.

• Crock It: Put whatever is left of the bird in a crock pot with a cup or so of water, and simmer for several hours. Drain the bones and liquid into a broth pot. Remove and chop the remaining chicken meat and set it aside for use in the Tuff-to-Tender Recipe below.
  
  (To make bone broth, follow the Chicken Bone Broth recipe, simmering for up to 16 additional hours. The resulting broth can be used to make gravy, or it will certainly make fantastic bone broth, which has incredible health benefits.)
  
  
• Roast It: Place the entire carcass of a tough disappointing bird into a roasting pan with a cup or so of water and a bit of butter or schmaltz, and roast at 300 degrees F for 1-2 hours. 
  
  
• Soup It: If you already intend to use the chicken for soup or stew, your choice is made for you. Make whole chicken bone broth following the Chicken Bone Broth recipe. Then use the broth and chicken to make chicken soup or chicken noodle soup! Mmmmm!

FYI: American Bresse chickens are an old-world heritage breed not yet recognized by the American Poultry Association (APA). Folks that try to cook them in the same manner as grocery store chickens may find that the Tuff-to-Tender recipes with cooked chicken meat will help make the meat more tender.

I hope these recipes with cooked chicken meat will be just what you need, whether reshaping leftovers, or taming tough chicken.

Bon appétit!

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