Day 38 - Pot Luck

Having been spectacularly bad this week at creating much from scratch I decided to make sure I did just that today. Gerry was at work until around 8pm so I had plenty of time to get the brain cells up and running after I hit the gym for a couple of hours. A mini boast here as I completed a 5k run in just over 30mins, 6 mins off my PB!

Anyway, on entering my flat after the gym I was hit by the smell of roasting chicken from another flat and since it was Sunday I decided to follow suit. I fired up the slow cooker and started to lightly brown a 1.5kg chicken in a tablespoon of olive oil for around 10 mins. This then went breast-side down in the slow cooker.  Next I added a large onion cut into 6 wedges to the pan with the remaining oil and cooked these until they just started to brown. I then added 500ml of dry cider, 3 tsp Dijon mustard and 2 tsp caster sugar. I brought the whole lot up to the boil, stirring continuously.

I then poured the liquid mixture into the slow cooker over the chicken, along with 700ml of chicken stock and 3 celery sticks, 3 carrots all roughly chopped. I also added 6 wedges of lemon and 2 tsp dried thyme. I made sure the vegetables and chicken were submerged below the level of the liquid to ensure they would all cook through evenly and thoroughly.

The lid then went on for around 5 hours on High. I was a little concerned about the volume of liquid since it was perilously near the top of the crock pot but luckily it didn't bubble over. Once it was cooked I lifted out the chicken and set aside on a plate. I then drained the liquid into a large dish, removing the vegetables with a slotted spoon to serve on the side. I made a gravy out of some of the stock, adding potato starch to thicken it up slightly and 1 heaped tsp chicken gravy granules. I also accompanied it with roast potatoes and steamed broccoli.

Pot-Roasted Chicken with Lemon

The end result was bloody fantastic. The chicken simply fell off the bone and the flavour of lemon, cider and thyme has really infused in the meat. It was the best roast I've done in quite some time and with minimal fuss. It was also so easy to pick the chicken from the bones for lunches in the week and I froze the chicken liquid as stock cubes for future use.  I highly recommend this method!