Cooking a whole chicken in the SC.. mine always smells funny!

ivyleaf

I've cooked gammon joints in the SC a couple of times, but we've all agreed the texture is nicer when it's boiled on the hob! Thanks for the tip about the pork though Black-Saturn, will give that a try. I haven't tried SC whole chicken and am rather glad after reading the above posts!:p

pinkhammy

Wish I'd read this post earlier!! Decided to do a whole chicken in my SC yesterday and headed out! OMG! Had visions of coming home to a lovely smell and lovely chicken!! Boy was I wrong! The chicken was edible tho everybody moaned about "no crispy skin" Think I'll stick to roasting my chicken now too! And the smell is still here this morning too!:rolleyes2

calleyw

I like chicken done in the SC. I find the meat is very tender. Are you putting in too much water.

Why not do what I do to save heating up the kitchen and save on gas. Is to cook the meat in the slow cooker for a couple fo hours and then finish it off in the oven. I do it for this reason so I can get nice scrummy roast potatoes. And cook my dessert at the same time.


Yours


Calley

tawnyowls

I wonder is it because chickens are fattened up so quickly now (and probably have water added to the flesh as well) that the meat has too much water to be successfully slow-cooked? I must admit, I stick to the oven if I want something to taste roasted - I use the SC for stews, casseroles, curries, stroganoffs, etc - something with a flavoured sauce/gravy. After the chickens been eaten, I chuck all the bones etc in the SC to make soup.

Macnab

I often find that things smell funny when cooked in the slow cooker, thought it was just my slow cooker though!

RubyMurray

I cooked a whole chicken in the sc for the first time yesterday/today and it was lovely, the whole house smelt wonderful too. Maybe some like the smells and some don't!

I bought a large chicken reduced to £1.47 and didn't have room in the freezer for it or the will to do a roast dinner so I slung it in my ancient slow cooker with a bay leaf up it's bottom and a large onion sliced over and around it, some salt and lots of ground black pepper, no water added. Cooked it for about 6-7 hours. I lifted it out to cool and strained the juices into a pot and fridged it. Took the fat cap off and saved for doing roast potatoes, and half the wonderful golden stock was used to make some gorgeous gravy with the breast meat for dinner. The rest of the stock will become some chicken noodle soup and the rest of the meat will do for a curry and chicken fried rice. I'm hoping the carcass will stand up to another round of stock-making after that!

The kids really enjoyed the chicken and my boy said he wants me to cook chicken like this every time from now on because it was really juicy and tasty. I think slow-cooked meals can smell or taste funny when they're over done, if they're left too long they smell and taste like school dinners or tinned food, you have to experiment to get the timing right.

Addiscomber

By coincidence I cooked a chicken in my slow cooker for the first time yesterday. I did not notice any smell until I took the lid off, and then it was only slight. I didn't expect the skin to be crispy, but we never eat that anyway.

What did surprise me was the amount of liquid that came out of it. I put a bare 1/2 pt (300ml for any youngsters that think in metric) and noticed the level rising during the day until it was halfway up the chicken. When I drained it off in the evening it filled a basin that must be at least 2 pts capacity. It does look a nice golden colour though, unlike what collects in the bottom of the roaster when I oven roast one, or the stock that I have previously made by boiling bones, and that method does smell. There is only a thin layer of fat collected on the top too. So I think in future I will cook a chicken in the slow cooker about once a month mainly for the stock and use the meat in something with a sauce.

Will there be any more stock making mileage by putting the bones back in the slow cooker once I have removed the meat? And if so how much water should I add, or should I replace some of the stock from yesterday?

janeawej

:beer:

Pink-winged wrote:

One of the things I like about the slow cooker is that it doesn't make the house smell. I used to hate making stock on top of the hob because of the smell, but now I do it in the slow cooker and unless I open it, there is no smell.

Sorry that's no help to you Girlpower.

Pink

Thanks pink i had never thought of making stock in mine it would save me burning any more pans with my stock fetish! i cannot bear to throw any bones away without first making stock, once even took away a cooked chicken carcass from a friends house to make stock from as i couldnt bear to see it wasted!

aurora_borealis_2

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

My DD2 always knows when I'm using the slow cooker as soon as she enters the house. She says it smells like cat's wee :eek:

Swan_2

calleyw wrote:

I like chicken done in the SC. I find the meat is very tender. Are you putting in too much water

Cally, the first time I used about half a pint & I thought maybe it was too much, so the second time I put in just enough to barely cover the bottom of the pot. but both times the chicken was ruined, the meat was tasteless & the texture ruined. sloppy, like something you'd feed to someone with no teeth, absolutely vile

that said, it did produce wonderful stock, but that wasn't quite the use I had in mind for a whole chicken :rolleyes: