I have NEVER handled a whole chicken, even when I was buying commercially raised chicken, so when I cooked my very first meatie in the crockpot yesterday I was horrified when dismembering it this a.m. to find all of the vertebrae(?) falling into the meat. I was seperating the dark meat for soup/bbq sandwiches and had to go thru teaspoon after teaspoon of flesh looking for bones and other disgusting grissely things. maybe I shouldn't crockpot a whole chicken? sorry-I am just rambling but I was surprised at all of the work(I will STILL eat only my own chickens but maybe cook differently?) all the grossness aside the chicken tastes WONDERFUL.
lol, the backbone is pretty gross. get yourself a really sharp (be careful) carving knife and cut it up before you cook. you can section it or debone it surprisingly easily. (I always remove the tail too). there is a really great thread on here about making chicken stock; the guy uses all of these parts to make it - I really want to do that one day. You must have a huge crock pot to fit a whole meatie in it!
I haven't crock potted a whole chicken. I understand what you're saying, though. Perhaps the next time wrap the chicken in cheese cloth before you put it into the pot. That way you don't have to sift through the entire pot looking for bones, etc. Just scoop out the wrapped chicken, and pick through the pile, apart from the broth and whatnot. It's similar to making a pot of chicken soup.
my mom said something about cutting that part of the chicken out first-I just hate to lose ANY meat. the intact chicken wouldn't fit so I cut it up(not properly i am sure!)until it DID fit and it was gross looking then. I imagin I will find something here on cutting up raw chicken(as you have probably guessed I am not the brightest of stars so I think I will go find that info now) thanks!!!
In the days of broken oven, I have crockpotted a turkey. Same issue with the vertebrae. I suggest you find a nice manly sucker, I mean man, and have him do the seperating while you cut him a slice of pie for desert OTHERWISE: cut apart the chicken beforehand, and throw all the "little bone" parts in a netted bag of some sort. I have some that are supposed to be laundry bra bags that work nicely. Some types of cheesecloth will work too. Much of the meat will fall off and float away and all the bones stuck in the bag. Straining the meat will solve the "tablespoon" issue as well. Also- I learned the hard way to wait until the meat cooled down, should you not have a welder on hand to do your bone sorting for you.
My Mom always taught us to boil the chicken in a covered pot for only an hour. Then you can take it out and let it "rest" and cut it up. The meat is not so sloppy and doesn't fall apart so much. I add the meat back in or use it for other recipes and the stock is ready for freezing in 1 cup bags. I measure it out for other recipe's - when I crock pot a bird. I limit the amount of water to 1 cup min to 1.5 cups max. It will help do the same thing. I also found that my best buy was of all things a Turkey roaster appliance I got at a wall mart for about $65 - ( I bought it to cook hot dogs in for cubscouts) I have only used it for Turkey once but I love cooking in it. I put the chickens - I do two at a time, on a rack have some onions under the rack and over the meat and I always coat my chickens with olive oil and add just a little liquid to the bottom of the pan. The olive oil makes the skin really crispy and holds in the juices. Cal Jax FL
thanks for the idea of cutting chicken up and putting questionable bones w/meat in a bag(cheesecloth?) am learning. at least then the whole chicken won't be littered with bones.
