Stock and Left-over-chicken Cakes

It's so sad when the roast is over. But, luckily, I've managed to make mine last most of this week! Slightly on the thrifty side I know but while on a budget, it's great. Fried up leftovers and nice hot gravy was delish on Monday andI made stock on Monday too. Here's how:

Pick all the chicken off the bones - keep all bones you can find, even from the drumsticks etc. Lose the skin - If I had a cat or dog this would go to them, and although tasty, I leave it out of stock as it adds grease.

Keep all the meat to one side. Yes, of course I'll use this later.

Then break the bones up and put all into a big pan with an onion, couple of carrots, and a couple of sticks of celery - all chopped chunky - and two bay leaves, a good sprig of thyme, and a few peppercorns. Add water to just cover the bones and veg. Boil for hours - or three, till the water looks really murky and there's a good chickeny smell wafting about.

When you think it's had long enough, put to one side, and leave to cool. Later, seive into containters and fridge (if you're going to use it soon - ie this week), or freeze.

Yum!

And all those bits of good chicken - are good for anything! Make a chunky chowder style soup with sweetcorn and some of the stock?
Or, risotto?
Or, chicken cakes?

I chose chicken cakes - sounds odd? Think fish cakes with chicken instead of fish, and trust me, they're good.

Put a few potatoes on to boil in small cubes.
Finely chop and onion and couple of cloves of garlic, put in a pan with some oil and thyme and soften.
When they're cooked, mash the potaoes, mix in the onion mix and leave to cool down.
Take the leftover chicken, and any leftover stuffing etc and chop into a fine mulch - don't mash it or blitz it - just run a knife over it a few times to make small chunks. (I added some chopped spinach to the chicken too, but only because it was hanging about!)

Add the chicken to the mash mix, with salt and pepper, a good dolop of dijon mustard, an egg, and a good grating of cheese (I only had cheddar, so used that, but have a feeling parmesan would work well here). Mix it all up well. I don't have any quantities as it's hard to know how much chicken you'll have left, I think roughly 2/3 potato, and 1/3 chicken should be a good guide.

Form into burger size patties and fry in a hot pan until you have a good brown crust on each side. As you're reheating chicken give them a good long time in the pan and make sure they're thoroughly heated through. This will be quicker if you don't make them too thick.

We had these with branston pick and a corn on the cob - because that was what we had in the fridge! But it did work well. Tasty.