Topic: Vegetarians need not apply.

[Garp]

Not sure about this blended chicken in a base at all. Totally alien concept to me.

I can understand using the stock and having a few bits of chicken left in there (although I would advocate that that would be wrong) but to deliberately blend chicken meat into a base gravy seems a strange idea, at best.

I'm open to being convinced though.

[livo]

It was a first for me too Garp, and using the amount of chicken meat that came from 2 frames is probably a bit of overkill in a 1 kg onion batch of gravy that finished at about 3 litres of concentrate or double that diluted 50 /50.  It is strong enough to even dilute it out further if necessary.

I was just going off what had apparently been customary practice in early BIR days and probably didn't think the quantity through very well. If the BIR's back then had 2 or 3 frames boiling away in their base, there would have been a considerable meat transfer, although probably not the amount I used.  I'll probably think it through and make an adjustment next time.  However, the base actually came out really tasty and makes good curry so it didn't do any harm.  It smelled absolutely great when it was cooking and it is pretty tasty on it's own.  I would not call it a neutral base by any stretch.

[Dajoca]

Thank you.

[livo]

Thank you.

No problem at all. You may want to make reduction adjustments to the quantity of chicken that actually ends up in the base. After considering Garp's assessment above, I have to agree that I probably overdid the chook just a wee bit.  However, as I say it still turned out pretty darned good.  Very tasty indeed.

I would be interested to know from Chewytikka, or anybody else who may know, the approximate size of the commercial Base Gravy batches from early days that did contain a couple of full chicken frames.  It may transpose that to get the same original BIR thing happening at home, only a couple of wings is required in a 1 kg onion batch.