As for poaching chicken...
I like the traditional Chinese method where you place a whole chicken in a pot, cover it with cold water, then bring the water to boil. Then once it starts boiling, you turn the heat off, cover the pot, and let it sit undisturbed for 30 minutes. -Jeff Smith, "The Frugal Gourmet", advocated this method.
The chicken comes out perfectly cooked and moist, and then it's just a matter of pulling, shredding and/or cutting the meat off the carcass to use in the recipe of your desire.
*The poaching liquid is basically tasteless, very bland. Yes, you could use it to cook something else, but it really would not add any discernible flavor. The point of poaching is to gently cook something in order to retain as much of the flavor as possible. Now, if you boiled it for a longer period, and cooked it until done, then more of the chicken flavor would disperse into the water/cooking liquid.
