September 18, 2008

The Result: Jen's Crock Pot Whole Chicken Surprise

I would not recommend this method. The surprise was not good. The chicken ended up getting stewed, without much flavor at all. The chicken skin stayed rubbery...ew. Not good. There was just way too much liquid in the crock pot, and the breast meat was still stringy. Definitely not the texture I was hoping for. The chicken literally fell apart (bones and all) when I tried to take it out of the crock pot and put it on a platter. I had to fish the meat, bit by bit, out of the soup-like fluid. Double ew. After I got all the meat out, it ended up being just plain old chicken meat. All the flavor components stayed in the stew. Blaaeacchhhh! It was very unremarkable.

The only good thing about this dish was that it made the process of making chicken stock super-easy (recipe to follow). Usually, I have a big pot that I make stocks in, but this time, I just did it in the crock pot. So, no complaints about the stock and it was actually easier than usual..which is something to say...because homemade chicken stock is normally pretty easy. I guess my newly-made chicken stock is the silver lining in this rain cloud.

To top things off I ended up using the last bag of brussel sprouts for our veggie, and, as I mentioned before, a box of stuffing mix that I microwaved. Again, the ick factor was very high for me....considering my disdain for brussel sprouts.

My final analysis is that this whole dinner needs to be forgotten. I am not going to make whole chicken in the crock pot ever again. However, I would recommend making chicken stock in the crock pot.

1 comment:

Claire said...

I've given up whole chickens in the crockpot, too. The breast meat is ALWAYS dry, even when I cook it breast-side down so the breast meat is submerged into the broth/liquid/juice/whatever the whole time. And it's a PITA to get out of the crockpot.