So, I just cooked a whole chicken for the first time last night/today (ok, in June - it took me awhile to upload the picture). I just moved into a house where I'm a live-in companion with a couple of adults with developmental disabilities - which is neither here nor there, except that upon moving into a new house / taking charge of a household, I inherited a number of food items (and other things) I might not have chosen to purchase myself (like many packs of bologna and hot dogs, cans of beefaroni, a box of 36 hamburger patties, etc.). This is a bit of a curse and a blessing - while at first I was a bit confounded at how I would manage to get all of this food out of the house without throwing it directly in the garbage, I have since welcomed the creative challenge.
One of the items was also a whole chicken - something I've never tried to cook before because it kind of grossed me out, and because I've never felt like I've had an occasion to do so, but something I nevertheless "believe" in - cooking and eating the whole chicken, versus purchasing a whole pack o' breasts (which I actually just did, in case the whole chicken thing didn't work out). And after my friend Jennifer crock-pot cooked a whole chicken when I was with her in England last summer, I was inspired by her and her husband's Chris commitment to slow and local food (of course this inherited chicken was not local - clearly grocery store brand).
So, I decided to go to trusty allrecipes.com to see if there were any pointers or recipes about how to go about this task. And lo and behold, one of the recipes for "whole chicken crock pot" was Chicken Spaghetti, which I was also planning to make soon.
In that recipe, it simply said to place the chicken in a slow-cooker, cover with water, and add some salt and pepper. Could it be that simple??
Yes - well, close.
First, I had to take off the plastic of course. Then, my grocery store chicken had a plastic bag o' innards stuffed inside, which I took out, and simply threw in the trash can. Mind you, I'm still new at this - I wasn't quite ready to deal with the mysterious bloody mess in that plastic bag. I'm guessing it was livers and gizzards, but I'm not sure.
Then, I simply placed the chicken in my crock pot, covered most of it with water, added some salt and pepper (and a dash of cumin and basil or something, just because I figured salt and pepper couldn't suffice for seasoning), and set it on High.
I cooked it on High for a good hour or more, turned it over (since I hadn't covered it completely with water) then went to bed with it set on Low.
In the morning, it was already tender, but some of the meat looked a little pink, so I turned it on High for 30 more minutes or so, and was gone again for the morning, so I turned it back down to Low (you can tell I have a very high-tech crock pot). By Noon, the house smelled of chicken and when I put a fork in it, meat practically melted off the bone.
So, I drained off a small container of broth, let the rest go down the sink, and went to work pulling all that good meat off the bones. I used a fork mainly, with the occasional help of a butter knife - it was that tender. I put the meat in a casserole dish I later used for Chicken Spaghetti. There were a few liver-y looking parts that were kind of gross to touch, and I had to watch out for a few smaller rib-like bones, but other than that, it was pretty easy to get it all apart. 15-20 minutes, later, I had this:
As follow-up to the crock-pot chicken adventure, you'll be interested to know that the other 1/2 of the pulled chicken that I put away in the fridge was eaten overnight by one of my housemates/clients. He loves a midnight snack - sometimes to the detriment of future meals I have planned for the rest of us.
Since said chicken adventure, I have crock-potted the pot roast that I also inherited - pretty good results as well. I've crock-potted beans at least once I think too, and I've decided that'll be the only way I'll do dry beans in the future, because I can't seem to get them to cook in a regular pot for the number of hours it says on the bag.
Happy slow-cooking!
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