Sunday, October 16, 2011

Slow Cooker Roast Chicken with Gravy

I've been cooking and baking up a storm this weekend!  It all started when Hy-Vee had whole chickens for super cheap, so I bought a couple with the idea that I'd roast one this weekend for dinner.  Now, fall is in the air but it's still rather warm here in Missouri and I didn't want to have my oven going that much.  Slow cooker to the rescue!  I roasted a whole turkey breast in the slow cooker a few months back and it turned out pretty awesome so I figured I could do the same thing with a chicken.  Now, I didn't really follow a recipe so you change this up as you see fit.

First things first, if you're going to cook a bird, you should really brine that sucker.  Brining is a magical process that tenderizes the bird and keeps it unbelievably juicy.  And it helps with the cooking part too - you know how overcooked poultry can get pretty dry and tough?  Well, the brine is sort of an insurance policy, you can overcook the bird a little bit but it still stays moist and tender.  My family does this for our Thanksgiving turkey and it turns out great.  It's important to note that you should never brine a kosher bird or one that has salt additives (Butterball usually does).  Just double check the package and make sure that there's no salt added, otherwise brining is going to make it way too salty.  Anyways, brining a chicken is super easy and you really have no excuse for not doing it.  I used a simple brine from America's Test Kitchen for a 3-4 pound whole chicken: 2 quarts cold water, 1/2 cup table salt, 1/2 cup sugar.  You dissolve the sugar and salt in the water, submerge the bird, refrigerate for 1/2-1 hour (don't overdo it, otherwise it'll get salty) and that's it.  Once you're ready to cook, rinse that bird off and pat dry.  Now if you're doing something other than a whole chicken, make sure you find an appropriate brine recipe (and brining time) for it.

So I brined my bird, rinsed and dried.  Since I was going to cook it in the crockpot, I took off the skin of the chicken.  Why?  For many reasons, 1. it's just healthier, 2. since it's in the crockpot, it'll stay moist without the skin, 3. also because it's in the crockpot, the skin won't brown and soggy skin is unappealing, and 4. all that extra fat would just pool in the bottom of my crockpot and I just didn't want that.  After I skinned the chicken, I rubbed it down with a spice mixture - basically things in my spice cabinet that I thought would be good.  In the bottom of my crockpot I put some celery, onion, and carrots to both lift the chicken off the bottom and to flavor the juices (I'll make a sauce with it when I'm done).  The chicken goes in, breast side down and it's ready to go.  No water, no liquid, no nothing.  Trust me.  Put it on low for about 6 hours.  It's a good thing to check the temperature of the chicken after maybe 5 hours, some slow cookers are a bit faster than others (mine was done at 5 hours).


I took my chicken out, it was a little tricky since it was almost to the point of falling-apart tender.  I let it rest to keep the juices in and to let it cool down a bit.  If you want to be all fancy, you can go ahead and carve this thing, but I went with the "pick the meat off with my tongs/hands" route.  It was pretty easy since the meat just popped off the bone.  Once you get all that meat off, save that carcass.  Seriously, a bunch of chicken bones with a little bit of meat on them is an excellent starter for homemade chicken broth.  I plan on making my own broth, also in the slow cooker, tomorrow.  I'm going to go all circle of life on this chicken - roast chicken, chicken broth, broth for soup.
Along with all the bones, what you should also use is the drippings.  You can make some easy gravy with it.  Now, if you have a fat separator, you're in good shape.  If you're like me and don't have one, just put the drippings and fat in a measuring cup and put it in the fridge.  Later, you'll take about 1 cup of the juices (or more) plus about 1 tablespoon of that fat.  You cook the fat with a little bit of flour or cornstarch (about 1 tablespoon thickener to every tablespoon fat) until it browns.  Then add your drippings, whisk, and heat until you've got yourself some gravy!

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