Funky Chicken (leftovers)

[SharonDee]

I baked a delicious Chicken & Rice dish on Sunday, planning to make it last the rest of the week in order to keep me out of restaurants and fast food drive-thrus.

Great idea in concept, terrible in execution. Reheated chicken (or turkey) tastes bad to me. I don't know what the difference is but it doesn't matter whether I cook it or whether someone else does. If I'm not served the meat shortly after it's cooked, it tastes spoiled or whatever.

So far the only people who agree this is so have been my family members, especially my mom.

Is this taste thing hereditary or is it a matter of preference?

Also ... what am I going to do in order to make this cooked chicken more palatable?

[livius drusus]

I totally agree with you on re-cooked chicken. To me it tastes like it was boiled for too long the second time around. There's only one thing to do with leftover chicken: salads, either chicken salad or adding it as a topping to another salad, like a chicken caesar.

[lisarea]

To me, poultry has a very small palatability window. It smells like sweaty white people before it's cooked fully, and again after it's cooked too much.

As such, my solutions for used chicken and turkey usually involve saucing the pants off of it. My favorite is to make it into a curry, usually with coconut milk and a pre-boughten curry paste, simmered for a while until the meat kind of shreds.

[Demimonde]

Shred it and make enchiladas. Covered in a nice sauce and/or smothered in cheese it will be noshable.

[Janet]

Wow. I am absolutely not like that. My favorite dish is my mom's casserole with leftover chicken and rice stuffing. My mom and my sister tend to think the best thing about making a turkey is the turkey a la king I make with the leftovers. Much as I like chicken or turkey a la king, it's not the whole point for me.

My recommendations would also involve sauces, as it can get dry on reheating without it. I baked a cut up chicken on Sunday and made bread dressing and I plan to cut up some of the chicken and add it to the dressing with a can of cream of chicken soup tonight. Mom's casserole uses cream of mushroom soup and, of course, an a la king has either a white sauce or a veloute sauce or something in between, depending on your taste. I tend to go with the third option, about 2/3 stock to 1/3 milk in the sauce, sautee minced shallot, red pepper, mushrooms and black olives. Cut up the chicken and heat in the sautee pan with the veggies while the sauce is cooking, then add it all in and let them cook together for 5 or 10 minutes. You can serve it over your leftover rice and it will be yummy.

[Sonoma Bear]

Sweaty White People Chicken? Wow, gotta try that one! Seriously, I often have the same problem with chicken that's been reheated, so we usually have it pulled and in a sauce of some kind, or with a cheese smother such as Demimonde described. On roast chickens, we usually keep the carcass cold and cut up pieces for sandwiches or chicken salad. We've also done barbequed chicken pizza with jalapenos, onions and mozzarella to use up leftovers.

[mulebear]

Correction on the pizza. We use cheddar for the chicken BBQ pizza. Not mozzarella.

It's okay... He has teh olds.

[Sonoma Bear]

In that case, Lisarea will tell me how to make Sweaty White People Chicken for you...

[SharonDee]

I chopped up the chicken and threw it into a pot with my mom's homemade salsa, some chili powder, and some garlic powder. I boiled it for a bit, simmered it for a bit, then served it with mashed potatoes.

HOT!! The spicy hotness certainly took care of that pseudo-rotten taste and the sour cream helped me get through my dinner. This definitely tasted better than last night's attempt, where chopped chicken was joined by Creamy Chicken Ramen noodles. Perhaps I should have thrown my salsa on that.

Thanks for your advice, everyone.

[Dingfod]

Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

[freemonkey]

Originally Posted by SharonDee

Reheated chicken (or turkey) tastes bad to me. I don't know what the difference is but it doesn't matter whether I cook it or whether someone else does. If I'm not served the meat shortly after it's cooked, it tastes spoiled or whatever.

So far the only people who agree this is so have been my family members, especially my mom.

I agree with you! I don't like any reheated meat. I almost always eat leftover meat cold. Unless I put it in things like soups and stews.

[wei yau]

Originally Posted by lisarea

As such, my solutions for used chicken and turkey usually involve saucing the pants off of it. My favorite is to make it into a curry, usually with coconut milk and a pre-boughten curry paste, simmered for a while until the meat kind of shreds.

You know, I bet there are a couple of horribly deprived little puppies who would love some leftover chicken and/or turkeys.

[lisarea]

True, but they like me to make it up into a nice curry first. They think plain leftover poultry is kind of funky.

[LadyShea]

You can also simmer the leftover chicken in BBQ sauce and make nice sandwiches, or simmer it in broth for a soup (thicken it up with cream and butter and throw in some dumplings!). I won't eat leftover chicken as is, like "here's a microwaved hunk of last night's chicken"...yuck.

[wei yau]

As for leftover chicken, I'm not a huge fan of it. I usually won't reheat it, though.

For cold roast chicken or grilled chicken breast, I'll usually slice it then and use a dipping sauce of soy sauce and chili oil. I'll have this with ramen noodles. It works okay and I'll sometimes use the ramen soup to warm up the sliced chicken.

That's how I usually have chicken. A few times I'll have leftover chicken stir-fry, which doesn't reheat great. The only one that does is the one that I make which is simmered with napa cabbage and chicken broth. That reheats better, since it has a lot of liquids.

[Demimonde]

Oh! Shea's BBQ idea reminds me of another good one, buffalo chicken. Some hot wing sauce, diced celery and either blue cheese or ranch makes a great sammich.

I like your result Sharon. Spicy chicken and mashed potatoes are lovely together. Especially with cheese. (I am a bit of a cheese fanatic, I know.)

Eggs can also be a fountain youth for funky chicken. Omlette or fritatta time!

[mulebear]

[Dingfod]

That's DANG kay-suh-dillas.

[mulebear]

Gosh!