Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Crockpot Garlic Chicken

Yet another great recipe from Stephanie, the Gluten-free Crockpot Lady:

Ingredients:


3-4 pounds chicken pieces
1 large onion, sliced
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon pepper
20-40 garlic cloves, peeled, but intact

Directions:

Place onion slices on the bottom of the stoneware insert of your Crockpot. In a large mixing bowl, toss chicken parts with olive oil, salt, paprika, pepper, and all of the garlic cloves. Pour into Crockpot, on top of the onion.

NOTE: if you use boneless, skinless chicken breasts, add 1 cup of white wine or apple juice.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 4-6. The longer you cook chicken-on-the-bone, the more tender it will be. If you use drumsticks, the ones on the side will brown and may stick to the sides of the crock, burning a bit. If this bothers you, you can rearrange them with tongs an hour before serving.

P.S. I made this recently and started it around 6am; I fully intended to shut it off after 8 hours or so but was unable to. It ended up cooking on Low for more than 12 hours! And it was WONDERFUL! The liquid and the onions and garlic cloves turned a deep golden brown (caramelized) color...the veggies were so soft they basically disintegrated into the liquid. The chicken was incredibly tender, as usual. I thickened the liquid with cornstarch to make a sauce and served the chicken in the sauce over mashed potatoes.....YUM!

2 comments:

  1. I just learned something interesting about garlic: the anti-bacterial properties and some of the other health benefits are only "activated" when the garlic is chopped or crushed. This would certainly be a lot more work when talking 20-40 cloves, but it's worth reading about. Here's my post: http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2009/05/18/food-for-thought-garlic-and-onion-health-benefits-and-nutrition/

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  2. Thanks for the info Katie....however, to prepare this dish correctly you have to make it as described. Crockpot cooking takes a long time, and yes, the garlic is really cooked at the end and probably doesn't have many medicinal qualities left.

    I think that if you decided to add a little chopped garlic towards the end of cooking time, you would have a real garlicky flavor and some of the health benefits. But you certainly wouldn't want to wait and add all 40 cloves at the end! :)

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