Show Us Your Meat, and We'll Show You Ours

[Apoc]

FROZEN* whole chicken to fall of the bone cooked in 50 minutes. I'd actually describe it as better than fall of the bone because the top half of the bird separated from the bottom half when I was trying to lift it out with a carving fork in the cavity. I would think something that cooked would be mush or not taste very good, but the meat was as meaty as any other cooking method.... if that makes sense. It was like soup meat, but without all the falling apart that happens when you cook soup for hours.

*Defrosted just enough to get the giblets out of the cavity









I developed a carrot allergy a half dozen years ago, so we end up making all our own chicken broth. In the past we'd roast a chicken in the over and then cook the carcass in a crock pot with veggies. Here we just put all the parts back in the IP, added fresh veggies, water to cover, and cooked it for another 30 minutes. We actually left it on "keep warm" overnight because we didn't feel like dealing with it before bed. It was still very hot this morning and there was zero evaporation because it's a sealed system. A bit of straining and fat skimming, then into plastic bags for the freezer. The stock from this is darker than the other chicken stock we've made. I put a bunch of cilantro from our CSA in, so that may have helped, but I also think it's also because there was zero evaporation in both cooking processes.

To quote my wife, "I like that you can do it all in one pot."