Slow Cooker - The Recipe Collection

Ticklemouse wrote:

Hiya penrith.

Mmmmm - my fave way of doing chicken.

I just plonk mine in the slow cooker, with 1-2 inches of water. I stuff the chicken with a lemon sliced in two, or a bulb of garlic, season the top and put the lid on. Nothing extravagant and the chicken just falls off the bone and is gently flavoured with lemon or garlic (or whatever else you fancy flavouring with.) I find all day on low in the MR 6.5 is ample time.

Once done, remove chicken from stock (don't use those meat lifters, it'll fall to pieces, use fish slices or large slotted spoons) then you can remove any fat and make lovely gravy with all/some of the juice. I find there's always lots of juice so freeze the amount I don't want to use another day.

Thats exactly what I do nearly every Sunday-as kids only really like chicken.
After making gravy I save the left over juice, skim any fat off, and bung it back in to the slow-cooker the next day to make a soup, with bits of chicken, and any other needs-to-eated veggies, and maybe some pearl barley.

I leave the soup on the lowest setting all day, and time the bread maker to have a loaf ready for when I get in from work-open the front door-and the smell hits you!

Now you've got the hang of chickens, you can try other joints. I've done duck like chicken, only swap the lemon for orange and a leg of lamb is divine (and so much easier to 'carve', well, pull apart with a teaspoon) I can also vouch for beef and ham as well as the cheaper joints like shanks, shoulders etc. Don't think I've done pork in there yet, but there's still time

Hand of pork cooked in a litre of orange juice and half a pot of marmalade is very good. I also ended up with lots of orange sauce to pour over chops and things.

My Mum once tried to poison us on Christmas morning by cooking the turkey on too low a heat overnight, she now cooks it on a slightly higher heat and it's fine.

I would imagine that slow cookers are designed to be at the correct temperature not to produce bacteria and bugs otherwise people all over would be suing the manufacturers for food poisoning :eek:

I think this is an urban myth, a bit like, swans can brake your arm, you've heard it said, but you don't know anyone it's happened too :rotfl: *

*Thanks to Peter Kay (my favorite) for that joke

BrokeBrokeBroke wrote:

Someone I work with told me that they don't cook chicken in a slowcooker as it's not safe because the chicken takes so long to heat up/start to cook. As you all seem to be experts on this, I guess this isn't right/harmfull as eventually the chicken will cook. Has anyone else heard something similar?

I wouldn't recommend leaving a chicken in the pot to come on later in the day ie with a timer. Also, I always put boiling water in the pot so that it gets to temperature faster, although that's only been because I need to get it cooking asap so it's ready to eat on time. Once the chicken starts cooking, it builds up the heat and as long as it is cooked for long enough then the bugs will be killed. I also have never had food poisoning (well, not from things I've cooked myself)

A friend of mine used to be a bacteriologist and she said she would NEVER eat chicken she hadn't cooked herself or by someone she knew could cook well. She said most problems arose from shop or restaurant bought cooked meat/meals. Having said that, I've had few problems on that fromt too (except for a bag of freebie Maccy D's, but that's a whole different story you really don't want to know about _pale_ )