hungry poodle

No, this recipe doesn’t come from South Carolina. On hungry poodle SC will henceforth refer to Slow Cooker recipes. I think we all know each other well enough to have our own private culinary code, don’t you?

Here’s the first thing to remember about chicken and slow cookers–they aren’t a match made in heaven. Ten hours on LOW can render chicken deader than a doornail (see “How to Kill a Chicken Twice” in archives).

But if you’re careful, you can turn out a very flavorful dish, such as this Italian Chicken Stew that I adapted from Williams-Sonoma’s  ”New Slow Cooker” cookbook. In this case the time in the cooker is well spent–the flavors develop a richness that a quick saute can’t provide.

Warning to the set-it-and-forget-it crowd: there’s some prep work involved here. Again, it’s a necessary step to getting the maximum texture and flavor from the chicken. I suppose you could skip the browning step, but you’ll likely not get anywhere near the same results.

I served this with one-half cup of penne pasta.

Large pinch of saffron threads
1/3 cup plus 3 T. dry white wine
3 lbs. chicken pieces (I used breasts and thighs)
3/4 cup flour
salt and pepper
1 T. olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
10 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup low-sodium chicken broth
1 14-1/2 oz. can diced tomatoes, drained
3 bay leaves
1 T. red or white wine vinegar
Italian parsley, chopped

Soak the saffron in the 3 T. of white wine while you brown the chicken. Cut chicken breasts in half crosswise. In a plastic bag, combine the flour and generous amounts of salt and pepper. One at a time, add the chicken and toss to coat. Tap off excess flour and brown chicken pieces in the olive oil in a large skillet. Transfer chicken pieces to a plate.

Pour off any extra fat from the pan and add the onion and celery. Saute until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more. Pour in the 1/3 cup white wine and the chicken broth, bring to a simmer and cook to reduce slightly and to concentrate flavor, about 10 minutes. Transfer contents of the pan to a slow cooker and stir in the tomatoes, the saffron mixture and the bay leaves. Stack the chicken on top, cover and cook on LOW for 4 to 5 hours.

Using a slotted spoon transfer the chicken to a plate to keep warm. Discard the bay leaves and stir the vinegar into the liquid in the cooker. Let stand a few minutes, then skim off any fat from the surface.

Serve the chicken with the braising liquid and garnish with chopped parsley.

I found that the breasts held up better than the thighs during the long cooking. The thighs fell apart, which is not necessarily a bad thing. We enjoyed this even more the next day, when the flavors had time in the fridge to deepen and develop.

This recipe can be modified in multiple ways: you can add carrots to the braising liquid and season it at the end with basil. Or how about sauteing bell pepper strips with the onions and celery? That turns this into a version of chicken cacciatore.

Serves: 6

*Slow Cooker

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I served this with roasted root vegetables and broccoli.

I’m really getting into the slow cooker phenomenon. And it is a phenomenon, considering all the slow cooker cookbooks that line the shelves at bookstores.  Most of them are of the “set it and forget it” genre: you dump in a bunch of ingredients, many of them canned, flip the switch and let them cook together all day.

Sometimes this works, as with chili, while at other times you end up with an edible, albeit overcooked, dinner. I’m not into the merely edible. If what I cook doesn’t taste flat-out delicious I consider it a waste of my time in the kitchen. After all, I can get mediocre food at any restaurant.

The slow cooker is a tricky appliance. If you use it correctly and don’t expect it to work miracles, you can turn out some really good meals. Case in point: this turkey breast, which comes from Cooking Light’s  ”Slow Cooker” cookbook. I had modest expectations for this, but I was pleasantly surprised at how moist and flavorful the turkey came out. And the leftovers have sliced easily for sandwiches.

Why cook a turkey breast in a slow cooker rather than in the oven? Good question. The oven gives you a nice browned color; the slow cooker allows you to leave the house for hours. Take your pick. Right now, my house is under renovation and the kitchen is filled with a light layer of sheetrock dust, so the slow cooker is my cooking mode of choice.

Word to the wise: it’s very, very easy to overcook poultry in a slow cooker.  Check it with an instant-read thermometer about an hour before the end of cooking time and pull it out when it reads 160 degrees in the center of the breast. Also, Cooking Light advises cutting any piece of poultry over three pounds in half to ensure even cooking. I asked my butcher to cut the whole breast in half for me.

1 (5-lb.) turkey breast, skinned and cut in half
2 t. lemon pepper
2 T. flour
3 T. water

Sprinkle each half of the turkey evenly with lemon pepper and place into the slow cooker with the meaty sides down. Cover and cook on HIGH for 1 hour. Reduce heat to LOW and cook 5 hours or until an instant read thermometer reads 160 degrees. Remove turkey to a platter and cover with foil.

Strain cooking liquid into a small saucepan and remove as much fat as you can with a spoon. Combine flour and water thoroughly and slowly stir into the liquid. Bring to a boil and gently simmer until liquid thickens. Serve with turkey.

Note: Some of the newer slow cookers cook at a slightly higher temperature. My turkey was done at about 4 1/2 hours.

I am telling you this story in hopes of sparing you the dinnertime fiasco we had here last week.

I’ll set the stage: our old house is finally getting new sheetrock ceilings. In the meantime we’ve moved out to the little cabana in the back yard where my mom used to live when she was alive. Two adults, two big dogs and a puppy in a crate. It’s cozy.

Living in close quarters is fun for about a week. Then the novelty of “camping out” wears off and the constant proximity to one’s mate quickly reaches critical mass. Say one wrong thing and you could die. It must be what living in a submarine is like, minus (my husband should be so lucky) the torpedos.

To distract myself, and because the kitchen in the house is now off-limits, I bought a new slow cooker. And here is where you can kiss my sanity goodbye: rather than follow a bona-fide slow cooker recipe, I just Googled “chicken in a slow cooker” online, found an easy, unattributed recipe and gave it a whirl without any further consideration.

After generously salting and peppering my nice, plump, expensive (it deserved a better fate than this) free range chicken, I plopped it into the slow cooker with some onions, carrots and celery. Then I turned it on High for, get this: six hours. From what I’ve since read, that’s like cooking it on Low for 12 hours!

When I opened the lid, my chicken had died a second death, only this one looked far more brutal than the first. It lay in pieces, the leg and wing bones scattered amongst the sodden vegetables. It resembled the long-dead carcass of an unfortunate desert animal.

I did not take a picture of this disaster. You wouldn’t want to have seen it anyway.

Alas, all is not lost. I acquired a slow cooker cookbook and tried it again, this time with much more success. The chicken did not fall apart and the vegetables held their shape. Mind you, this isn’t like roasting a chicken in a hot oven. There’s no crispy, brown skin. It’s more like poaching, but it makes for a pretty decent dinner, with vegetables included. I served it with a great apple chutney I got at Whole Foods. And here’s a plus: you can put the leftovers to other uses the next day. (More on that tomorrow.)

Here, adapted from Michele Scicolone’s excellent new book, “The Italian Slow Cooker”, is Braised Chicken and Vegetables.

4 red potatoes, thickly sliced
2 large carrots, thickly sliced
2 cups butternut squash, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 large onion, quartered and sliced
1 3 1/2 to 4-lb. chicken
1/2 lemon
4 garlic cloves, peeled
2 rosemary sprigs

Place the potatoes, carrots, butternut squash and onion in the bottom of a slow cooker. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Liberally salt and pepper the chicken, squeeze lemon juice over the top and place the lemon rind, garlic cloves and rosemary sprigs in the cavity. Place the chicken atop the vegetables.

Cover and cook on LOW for 5 hours. The chicken should be cooked through.

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