Chef Bourgeois D. Chicken 2x

I was over at Apartment Therapy and they were talking about slow cookers & cooking. This reminded me that chicken soup season is at hand! I have a pretty basic process for getting the maximum out of a good whole chicken. This is what I listed on their site:

Get a whole chicken. 1 head of garlic, 1 lemon, 1 cup chicken stock, 1 large onion (color of choice, but not red), a couple of stalks of celery (potatoes are optional if there is room. red taters work best). Put the celery flat on the bottom of the cooker dish. Remove skins from onion and garlic. Zest the lemon a bit. Halve the lemon. Quarter the onion. Stick all the garlic and lemon into the cavity of the chicken. If there is room, maybe a quarter or half of the onion can go in as well. Salt and pepper the chicken's exterior well. Place it in the dish and pour in the chicken stock. Throw in the zest. Turn the cooker on low and let it go overnight or 8 - 10 hours.

When it is all said and done, the meat should be falling off the bone. Enjoy!

Save the left over juice & bits, bones and whatnot. Roast the bones for an hour or two and with the other stuff plus fresh carrots, celery, bay leafs (generous dose) more garlic, salt & pepper, you can make excellent stock for future soups. It is a long and involved process, but totally worth it. A good stock pot helps. Proportions vary.

Not that I left anything out, but it is more involved than it sounds. Separating the meat can be arduous and messy. My recommendation is to eat as much of the meat as you like on the front end and save the rest for the soup end of things. Separate the bones, salt and pepper them lightly and then roast them. Throw everything you have left over into a stock pot, add all the stuff I listed before and simmer on low for at least an hour if not longer.

When finished, pull out the bones and put the solid bits into a Chinois and press it all down as hard as you can. That juice is the good stuff. Toss the spent solids and put the stock into a dish you can refrigerate. Once cold, you can skim the fat off the top and be left with a totally delicious stock for soups or simmering.

15 minutes until lunch. Damn!