Read The Great American Slow Cooker Book Online
Authors: Bruce Weinstein
The Great American Slow Cooker Book (56 page)
1
Mix the tomatoes, lima beans, corn, bell pepper, whiskey, broth, thyme, rosemary, salt, celery seeds, pepper, and cayenne in the slow cooker. Smear the rabbit pieces with the tomato paste; nestle them into the vegetable mixture.
2
Cover and cook on low for 6 hours, or until very tender.
3
Use tongs to remove the rabbit pieces from the cooker to a cutting board, working with a spatula underneath each piece so that it doesn’t fall apart. Cover the cooker and continue cooking on low. Cool the rabbit pieces for 10 minutes.
4
Debone the rabbit and shred the meat. Stir it back into the sauce in the cooker. Cover and cook on low for 15 minutes to heat through.
TESTERS’ NOTES
•
This hearty stew is stocked with vegetables, the better to set off the mild, sweet rabbit.
•
Take care that you do not drain the canned tomatoes unless the recipe specifically instructs you to do so. As here, that extra juice is often necessary to the recipe’s success.
with carrots and nutmeg
A LITTLE
•
PREP TIME:
25 MINUTES
•
COOK TIME:
6 HOURS
•
KEEPS ON WARM:
3 HOURS
•
SERVES:
3 TO 10
2- TO 3½-QUART
¾ pound carrots, peeled and shredded
3 tblsp golden raisins
½ tsp dried thyme
¼ tsp ground allspice
¼ tsp grated nutmeg
½ tblsp unsalted butter
1½ pounds rabbit, cut into pieces, or packaged rabbit legs
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground black pepper
½ cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
4- TO 5½-QUART
1¼ pounds carrots, peeled and shredded
6 tblsp golden raisins
1 tsp dried thyme
½ tsp ground allspice
½ tsp grated nutmeg
1 tblsp unsalted butter
3 pounds rabbit, cut into pieces, or packaged rabbit legs
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
6- TO 8-QUART
2¼ pounds carrots, peeled and shredded
¾ cup golden raisins
2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp ground allspice
¾ tsp grated nutmeg
2 tblsp unsalted butter
6 pounds rabbit, cut into pieces, or packaged rabbit legs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
1
Mix the carrots, raisins, thyme, allspice, and nutmeg in the slow cooker. Spread the mixture into a bed.
2
Melt the butter in a large skillet set over medium heat. Season the rabbit with salt and pepper, then lay as many of the rabbit pieces in the skillet as will fit leaving a couple of inches of space between each. Brown on both sides, about 8 minutes, turning once.
3
Transfer the browned rabbit pieces to the slow cooker, nestling the pieces into the carrot mixture. Brown the remainder of the rabbit pieces, still working in batches to prevent overcrowding, and then transfer these pieces to the slow cooker.
4
Pour the broth over everything in the cooker. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours, or until the rabbit is tender without necessarily falling off the bone.
TESTERS’ NOTES
•
This is a fairly simple Old World stew, a great way to introduce yourself to rabbit if you’ve never given it a try.
•
When you’re working stovetop, you don’t want any dark brown patches on the rabbit pieces; rather, some golden bits work best with this fairly mild, sweet meat.
Chances are, if you’re making dinner tonight, it’s some piece of a bird—probably boneless skinless chicken breasts or boneless chicken thighs, but maybe ground turkey. We Americans cook more pounds of bird per person than we do of beef or pork—and certainly more than fish. And after a brief lull in poultry consumption in the early 2000s, we’re back to new heights year after year.
This poultry tendency is sort of strange, given how difficult birds can be to raise (ever tried to chase one that gets loose?) and the small yield of meat. But over the millennia, birds have been on the right side of every trend: the nomadic life epoch, the settle-down-in-groups movement, the chicken-in-every-pot era, the low-fat craze, the low-carb panic, and even the high-fat, throw-cholesterol-to-the-wind barbecue mania. They’ve even made a comeback among the hipsters who raise chickens on their rooftops.
Birds have long been a human staple because they’re tasty, easy to cook, and nutritious. They’re perfect for a slow cooker: lots of interstitial fat that slowly melts into the sauce, bringing a braise or stew to a fine fullness without much fuss.
All this culinary hero worship belies an Achilles’ heel for us: chicken skin. Although it may be delicious when fried or roasted, it wins few awards in a slow cooker, turning soft and spongy. When there’s no evaporation, things can’t get crisp. Thus, poultry skin, long a favorite of bird eaters everywhere, almost comes to naught.
Fear not. There are ways around this dilemma: sure, by using skinless pieces of poultry when it doesn’t matter; but also by taking an extra step to crisp that skin when it does. Carefully follow the requirements for skin-on or skinless birds in these recipes. There’s no reason you’ll want that skin in a long stew; there’s every reason you’ll want it in an intense braise.
Remember, too, that most slow cooker recipes are incredibly forgiving. Got a quarter pound more or less of the bird than the recipe requires? No problem! Another little bit won’t make any difference to most of these stews. And if you have the small end of the large slow cookers (a 6-quart appliance), feel free to use the amounts for a stew or braise in a medium cooker for fewer servings.
A note on shopping: if you’re buying chicken pieces in a Styrofoam container under plastic wrap, take them out of this packaging when you get them home, particularly if you intend to freeze them for a later use. That packaging can freeze to the pieces and allow bacterial contamination during refrigeration. Remove the absorbent pad and slip the chicken parts into a zip-closed bag to be stored in the fridge for no more than 2 days or in the freezer for up to 4 months.
So here’s to our most popular sort of meal. And here’s to more ways that you can prepare chicken without resorting to canned-this and processed-that. We’ll be eating even more poultry next year. Count on it.
You’d expect lots of recipes for chicken in a slow cooker book, but you might not expect the range we’ve got here. Sure, there are plenty of braises and stews. But there’s much more. A slow cooker is hardly a backyard fire pit, but the appliance does cook up some tasty barbecue. The meat stays so moist there’s little danger of its drying out while the flavors—mostly smoked paprika and fiery chiles—soak in. No, you’ll never fool true barbecue mavens with our
Pulled Chicken
or
Honey-Barbecued chicken Drumsticks
; but you might not need to. They’ll be too busy wiping their mouths.
What’s more, if we futz with the definition of roasting, we can turn our small countertop appliance into a grown-up’s version of an Easy-Bake oven: no fuss, no mess, and pretty convenient all around. Yes, we must sometimes take care of the browning problem—sometimes by searing the chicken before it goes into the cooker and sometimes by crisping it under the broiler after it comes out. But we don’t have to. And voilà: we can roast chicken breasts, chicken legs, and even whole chickens.
We do take exception to one common slow cooker practice: dropping frozen chicken breasts or thighs into the cooker and letting them go for 8 to 10 hours. The meat doesn’t go from thawed to cooked quickly enough. It passes—for a long while—into a danger zone that lets nasty bacteria grow. These pests chow down and produce (ahem) residue often as toxic as the bacteria themselves. Suffice it to say, frozen chicken in a slow cooker is not a safe practice.
This section is divided by the basic chicken parts: we start with the tenders, then move on to the breasts (first boneless, then bone-in), then to the thighs (boneless before bone-in), before we get to the legs, wings, and finally the whole birds, sometimes cut up
and a few left whole. We round it out with some recipes for ground chicken, several for the meat from a purchased rotisserie bird, and a recipe that uses chicken sausage.
When you’re shopping for chicken, follow these basic guidelines:
•
Choose chicken by weight, buying what the recipe requires.
•
Look for supple skin with a pale, pink cast, neither leathery nor spongy.
•
Check the expiration date and note whether it’s a “sell by” (which gives you a couple more days) or a “use by” date.
•
Rely on your sense of smell. A fresh chicken should have little odor—if any, bright and bracing, not sulfurous or metallic.
•
Read the label. Some processed chicken is injected with a saline solution in a chicken-broth base. Juiced birds have a higher sodium content—and may not be to your liking for a variety of reasons, including so-called natural flavorings, which can include monosodium glutamate. If you’ve got injected chicken meat, reduce the salt in the recipe.
You should—as always—feel free to use these recipes for not only DIY road maps but also inspiration, altering spices and shifting vegetables. If you keep the bits of chicken the same as the recipe requires, you’ll end up with a fine meal: always the best expectation.
with spicy apple butter
NOT MUCH
•
PREP TIME:
10 MINUTES
•
COOK TIME:
2½ TO 3½ HOURS
•
KEEPS ON WARM:
30 MINUTES
•
SERVES:
3 TO 10
2- TO 3½-QUART
1½ pounds uncoated, unseasoned chicken tenders
1 cup unsweetened apple butter
2 tsp minced garlic
1 tblsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp red pepper flakes
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
¼ tsp grated nutmeg
4- TO 5½-QUART
3 pounds uncoated, unseasoned chicken tenders
2 cups unsweetened apple butter
4 tsp minced garlic
2 tblsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
½ tsp grated nutmeg
6- TO 8-QUART
4 pounds uncoated, unseasoned chicken tenders
3 cups unsweetened apple butter
2 tblsp minced garlic
3 tblsp apple cider vinegar
1 tblsp red pepper flakes
½ tblsp ground cinnamon
½ tblsp salt
½ tblsp ground black pepper
¾ tsp grated nutmeg
1
Stir the chicken, apple butter, garlic, vinegar, red pepper flakes, cinnamon, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in the slow cooker.
2
Cover and cook on low for 2½ hours in a small slow cooker, 3 hours in a medium cooker, or 3½ hours in a large model, or until the chicken is cooked through and the sauce has thickened a bit.
TESTERS’ NOTES
•
Yep, you can cook white meat chicken in the slow cooker; you just can’t cook it for long. Don’t keep this dish warm for more than 30 minutes; the chicken will become unappealingly dry.
•
By adding lots of warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg to apple butter, as well as a little vinegar for kick, you can turn the jarred favorite into a down-home braising sauce.
•
Apple butter is sweet by nature; the apples have been cooked down, even caramelized. You don’t need added sugar in it, nor spices like cinnamon. Read the label carefully.
•
When you stir the chicken and sauce in the slow cooker, make sure every piece of meat is well coated, most submerged.
INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
Sometimes called
chicken strips
or
chicken fingers
, chicken tenders are boneless, skinless strips of chicken meat. Years back, they were almost always the section of breast meat that hangs below the main lump on the bone; these days, they’re sometimes taken from the breast but are also compressed from various bits from the bird.
NOT MUCH
•
PREP TIME:
15 MINUTES
•
COOK TIME:
2½ TO 3½ HOURS
•
KEEPS ON WARM:
1 HOUR
•
SERVES:
3 TO 10
2- TO 3½-QUART
1½ pounds uncoated, unseasoned, chicken tenders
½ tblsp dried oregano
1 tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
¼ tsp garlic powder
½ cup all-fruit apricot spread
Up to 2 tblsp minced jarred pickled jalapeño rings
1 tblsp soy sauce
1 tblsp honey
1 tblsp fresh lemon juice
4- TO 5½-QUART
3 pounds uncoated, unseasoned, chicken tenders
1 tblsp dried oregano
1½ tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
½ tsp garlic powder
1 cup all-fruit apricot spread
Up to ¼ cup minced jarred pickled jalapeño rings
2 tblsp soy sauce
2 tblsp honey
2 tblsp fresh lemon juice
6- TO 8-QUART
4½ pounds uncoated, unseasoned, chicken tenders
1½ tblsp dried oregano
2 tsp salt
1½ tsp ground black pepper
¾ tsp garlic powder
1½ cups all-fruit apricot spread
Up to 6 tblsp minced jarred pickled jalapeño rings
3 tblsp soy sauce
3 tblsp honey
3 tblsp fresh lemon juice