Slow Cooked Tamari Chicken Drumsticks

How do you turn 12 drumsticks into enough to feed 15 people over time? This post answers that question as I am a huge fan of a little effort going a LONG way! Chicken drumsticks are such an economical way to have organic chicken regularly at home, and we tend to buy whole chooks or drumsticks for that reason. For around $8-10 per kilo depending on where you get it from, you’re not only getting the meat, but the amazing nutrients from the bones afterwards for making your chicken stock for future soups, sauces, risottos and stews. If you’re doing organics on a budget, then the organic chicken leg is just the ticket to stretching those dollars!

For a family of 3-4, this recipe, will provide you with 2 additional meals after the first one and a good stock of stock to use for umpteen other meals again, with the addition of a few basic extras each time. Big family? Invest in a big stock pot from a chef’s supply store and double the batch.

Further ideas to stretch this effort

San Choi Bao

So, you’ve all had a couple of drumsticks, and maybe the kiddies only had 1. This all means you’ve got some great, flavour-rich meat there to use for leftovers, like this san choi bao idea.

You’ll need to flake all the meat off the drumsticks and keep in a pyrex container until a couple of days down the track to perform your ‘reinvention’ dish. Add a 1/4 cup of the liquid from the left liquids to it, so that it’s moist and juicy for serving later.

You’ll then need a big  cos lettuce or cabbage leaves to make the ‘cups’

Then just grate and fine shop a bunch of veggies and cube some avocado and pop them all in separate bowls.

If you fancy a sauce, use this Asian dipping sauce from my cabbage salad recipe. It’s gorgeous and zingy!

Put the bowl of chicken meat, and all the separate bowls of veggies in the middle of the table and let people construct their own delicious cups. So colourful. So fresh. Enjoy!

Stock

I wrote a big, detailed post on the importance of making your own stock here if you fancy learning the amazing nutritional benefits.

To quickly make a left over stock now though, in the same pan, after dinner, keep everyone’s drumstick bones, and flake off the rest of the meat and put away, and keep those bones too.

Strain off all remaining liquid from the first effort, and set aside for using for a rich base for a soup the next night.

Then, put all the drumsticks back into your stock pot, add a carrot, a celery stalk, a small onion and some parsley / thyme / a bay leaf (bouquet garnis) – you could add a spring onion too if you had one or two.

Add 2 litres of water

Cook on lowest, smallest element overnight with the lid on, to extract all the possible minerals from the bones.

Once done, cool a little and then strain all the liquid into a jug / pan for easy pouring into jars. What you’ve now got is amazing, nutritious stock to use for quick boil-and-blitz soups, risottos, stews, and any place you need a rich base flavour. I often have a cup of chicken stock with a sprinkle of sea salt as an accompaniment to a salad lunch, to increase satiety and nutrient density.

Boil-and-blitz soup

Fry an onion, rough chopped in a couple of tablespoons of coconut oil or butter for 3-4 minutes.

Take your leftover cup or 2 of liquid from your dinner, and add another 2 cups water, putting it all into the pan once onion has been sautéed.

Add any veg getting sorry for themselves in the fridge and a handful of fresh herbs. Just enough so that the liquid still covers all the veg.

Boil for 5 minutes. Add 1/2 cup coconut cream or 3 tablespoons sour cream and then blitz with your stick blender, thermomix, vitamix etc until super smooth.

Add salt to taste. A quick nourishing lunch or dinner for 2-3 people is served.

So there you have it. Delicious recipes and the perfect post to share with friends who say organic meat is out of the question. Once I learnt about factory farming, I felt that *that* was out of the question, so I got creative and started supporting the people doing the right thing out there. I love meat and feel much healthier and stronger with it in my diet personally, so rather than cut a food out that works for me, I felt it was a more powerful choice, to advocate ethics and seek out the truly honest butchers and farmers at produce markets. It feels so darn good supporting good people too – just thought I’d tangent into a personal story there. Oops. It happens…

So I hope you enjoy this easy recipe and all the delicious off shoots, packed with bucket loads of nutrition!

Real Food. Happy Bodies,