Slow Roasted Chicken and Chicken Stock

Gross picture, I know. This is a totally random post to start with, because the process I'm going to share here is actually something I had never done before this week. A friend here in our city told me about a sale on whole chickens--I got this 3kg chicken for about $6-7. The goal with this process is to get yourself a whole lot of cooked, pulled chicken to make some dishes with as well as a bunch of homemade chicken stock.

1. To start, make sure your chicken is good and clean. After that, cover the outside with a light layer of olive oil. You can then liberally shake on some seasoning to cover the chicken--I used salt, pepper, onion powder, and basil. I also smashed 5 or 6 cloves of garlic and threw them inside the chicken. I think the possiblities are endless here with what you choose.

2. I chose to do this in my crock pot because of meats usually being tough in this country. I crumpled up several balls of foil to sit the chicken on so that it didn't get overcooked by touching the pot.  Depending on the heat level of your crock pot (low on mine is REALLY low) set it on low and let it cook for 7-8 hours at a minimum. I had to put mine on high for about 4 hours then knock it down. A lot of juices will start cooking out by the end.

3. Pull the chicken out of the crock pot and cool a bit. Then de-bone it and get as much meat off as you can. You can use this for about anything that calls for cooked chicken--soups, casseroles, chicken pot pie, etc.

4. After you've gleaned as much as you can from the bones, place some of them back in the crock pot with the juices which are already in there and any that have collected on your pan. Add some veggies--I put sliced carrot, onions (I used green onion because that's what I had), celery, and fresh parsley. You could also use potatoes or sweet potatoes. I also added about 1 tsp of salt, a couple bay leaves, and some whole peppercorns. Fill the crock pot with water and simmer for 4-5 more hours on high or low--whichever will give you a light boil.

5. At the end of this, you should have a nice, light yellow stock in the pot. Strain out the liquid. We measured it out into ziplock bags and froze it. I got about 14 cups of chicken stock. I'm really excited about this since the weather is getting colder and we're making a lot of soups!

This is quite a process but relatively hands off even though it takes all day. The results are certainly good ones! Tender chicken and homemade chicken stock!