I've written before about the difficulty inherent in roasting chicken. Slow cooking's the perfect way to get nice moist meat, but then the skin isn't very appealing. If you roast it hot enough to get nice crispy skin, the meat will be dry. This method promises the best of both worlds, so I wanted to try it out.
What the hell - it was a grey day today and I wasn't intending to go out, so I could keep an eye on it. Also, we had a chicken that needed cooking - we had a barbecue at the weekend and bought far too much food. Most of it has gone into the freezer, but the chicken wouldn't fit so it needed using up.
First prepare the veg. Chop an onion into nice big wedges, chop up some potatoes and peel and chop a couple of carrots. Put them in the bottom of the slow cooker and mix them up. Add a couple of twists of salt and pepper.
The chicken we had was one of those ready-for-the-barbecue ones, already covered in herbs and with a few sticks of butter on it. If you're using a plain chicken, mix up some herbs (maybe oregano and thyme) with some butter and cover the chicken all over. Squirt a couple of squeezes of lemon juice on too, if you want. I may have succumbed to the urge to add a bit more butter.
My slow-cooker isn't really big enough for this sort of caper, so I had to cut the legs off and put them in under the breast in order to squeeze it all in! As long as the lid goes on, it's all good.
Leave on low for about five hours. Watch a film, muck about on the internet, play some PlayStation games. The cooking time will depend on the size of your chicken and your slow-cooker - just make sure it's cooked through. I quite like the freedom that this sort of cooking gives: it won't burn or spoil so if the phone rings or someone turns up at the door it doesn't matter, you just eat when you're ready to.
Now for the crispy skin. Once you're sure the chicken is cooked all the way through, get your grill good and hot and grill for a couple of minutes until the skin's nice and crispy.
Taste verdict
It worked! Just as I'd hoped - lovely moist chicken and crispy skin. I really should have left it under the grill for five minutes longer - it hadn't quite crisped up enough - but I was getting hungry and just wanted to eat. We loved it, and we had to fight the cat off our plates too - very unusual behaviour for him!
I've just this second realised I forgot to take a photo of it plated up. Oops. Rest assured the veg was nice too.
Financial verdict
One small chicken (or you could use chicken pieces) - £4
An onion - 20p
Two red potatoes - £1
Two carrots - 26p
Total: £5.46. We ate the legs tonight along with about half the veg. I carved the breasts and pulled the meat off the wings, and that meat is all in a tupperware in the fridge, as is the leftover veg. We'll have bubble-and-squeak with cold chicken for dinner tomorrow, and one or both of us will probably have some of the chicken for lunch tomorrow, maybe in a sandwich with chutney. I also made stock by boiling up the carcass in the liquid that had settled in the bottom of the slow-cooker plus enough tap water to cover it. The stock will freeze until I need it. Oh, and the cat had a pretty big portion too. That makes £1.37 per main meal, plus stock, lunches and a bit for the cat. If you make sure there's no waste, it's really worthwhile roasting a whole chicken - and I'm absolutely loving this new way of doing it!
The skinny
Cut an onion into biggish wedges
Chop a couple of potatoes into equal-sized pieces
Peel and chop a couple of carrots likewise
Put all the veg in the bottom of your slow-cooker, mix them up, add salt and pepper
Mix herbs into some butter and spread it all over your chicken. Squeeze the chicken into the slow-cooker, cutting bits off to make it fit if necessary
Leave on Low for around five hours
Make sure the chicken is cooked through, then grill until the skin is golden brown
WeightWatchers ProPoints
10 per portion
No comments:
Post a Comment