Whole Chicken in the pressure cooker, the new Nesco Digital Pressure Cooker, a slight redo. One chicken, one pressure cooker equals loads of cooked meat and 8 cups of the absolutely delicious stock. In my world, that's under $6.00 and it makes at least 4 meals plus extra stock.

I do this once a week so that I have a fridge full of delicious, moist, tender, chicken cooked to access at my whim as well as 8 cups of rich, flavorful, pure, stock to cook with or freeze.  I can buy a whole chicken here, about 5 lbs, for about $5.00 so that's a pretty ridiculous way to get meat to make a number of dishes to feed my family for a week.  

I have posted this before, here's the new version, in the NEW Nesco Digital Pressure cooker that I recently had delivered to my door. I love this thing and even though the hinge placement bugs me, it's absolutely no reason not to rush out and buy one of these.  

http://www.nesco.com/products/Kitchen-Appliances/Electric-Pressure-Cookers/Pressure-Cooker-6-Liter-4-functions-in-1-UnitDigital-Controls/session_fd7737ff255b/?utm_campaign=Nesco&utm_medium=Paid%2BSearch&utm_source=Google&utm_term=dehydrator%2Baccessories

BACK to my chicken: 

TRACY'S PRESSURE COOKED WHOLE CHICKEN (for meat and stock)
**recipe follows for chicken and rice**

1 chicken, 3-6 lbs, cleaned and empty
1 onion, cut in quarters, not peeled!
2 carrots, broken in chunks, not peeled
1 celery rib, broken in pieces
salt, peppercorns, herbs du Provence (my fav), thyme, any herb you like really
water

Toss it in the pressure cooker, cover with water to about 1 inch over the chicken when you press it down.  Lock and load 30 minutes, leave it to let pressure come down naturally, for NO other reason other than ease :)  IF you're pressed for time, open it!

Pull the chicken out, strain the stock into jars and leave to cool.  Skim the fat off the stock and move to freezer container labelled, "chicken fat" for cooking later.  Cut the stock with water to bring it to 8 cups, divide and freeze or store the stock

Pick the meat from the chicken, store or freeze or eat or use in any recipe you have. 

Next week, repeat! 

Here's the play by play:

IN your beautiful Nesco pressure cooker...  c'mon, it is a looker, drop one chopped onion, with skin, a couple of broken carrots and celery rib (and leaves), some coarse salt and some pepper corns
        
drop the fat from the inside of the chicken... we are harvesting (euwww) fat here too, to keep in the freezer and cook with.  Drop the chicken on top, I cook it upside down, no good reason, I just do so you should as well.  Cover with water so that, when you press down on the chicken, the water covers it by an inch.  Be careful not to go past your fill line in the cooker.
   
Close the lid, turn the valve to SEAL, Lock and Load, high pressure, 30 minutes.  Go do something.  You can go shopping if you want because I ALWAYS leave it to come down from pressure on it's own, it flips to WARM when it's done cooking and I have left it that way for HOURS when I've gone out and forgotten about it.  Don't fret, it'll be waiting for you when you come home.  You can also do this with the delay time feature, very very handy.
    

DING DING

Turn the valve to VENT, if you've left it to come down on it's own, there'll be no dramatic squirt of steam.  If you're into it as soon as it's done, there WILL be a HUGE squirt, just keep your hands and face out of the way, regular common sense here.
   
Open it quickly (the trick to avoiding any unfortunate wrist mishaps) and LOOK!  I DEFY you to get chicken of this quality and stock THIS beautiful for the cost of this little bird.

LOOK at the color of this stock!  *gasp*  it's gorgeous.  Use the biggest scoop you have, I use a Chinese spider, to lift the bird out of the stock and into a waiting vessel.
   
Scoop out the veggies, they are spent and have given their flavor to the amazing stock. I give them to my chickens. Tip the stock from the insert into waiting jars and LOOK at what you have.  This golden liquid is nectar to the Gods, truly.  As I said, I make this weekly.  

The stock is fabulous as a broth if you're feeling sick.  Add to any recipe instead of water.  Make dumplings and drop them into boiling stock for something richer.  Make matzo ball soup, you'll be a hero.  I freeze it in small containers after and use it for everything.
   
Pick the meat when it's cooled down enough to handle and either use it right away or freeze portions or make whatever you want with it.  It's delicious, tender, juicy and for $6.00 you have quite a haul of food, healthy, fresh, and you made it. 

Go on, do it.  

/enjoy

OH OH  I wanted to throw a quickie recipe up today as well.  So, I was so enthralled with the 'sticky rice' recipe in the Nesco book that I thought I would test it again but with Basmati rice. 

I added 2 cups of un-rinsed Basmati to the pressure cooker and added 2 cups of liquid, one cup of the broth I'd just made above and one cup of water, plus a little bit of salt.  Lock and Load on RICE setting, which defaults to 12 minutes.
   
DING
   
wow. 

perfect.

slightly sticky but each grain perfectly cooked and it fluffs beautifully with a fork.

wow.

   

Butter a casserole dish that you like and drop some of the rice into it.  Shred some of the poached chicken and cover the rice.  Pour a little of the stock over the chicken, cover and bake for 20 minutes or so in a hot oven.
   
  

Steam some broccoli, make a little brown chicken gravy and VOILA!

It's not pretty but it's one of my favorite meals.  You can steam the broccoli in the pressure cooker while the chicken bakes, here's a link to how: 

http://www.tracycooksinaustin.com/2013/02/pressure-cooker-vegetables-in-3-minutes.html

here's a couple of  "beauty shots"

    

So, there you have it, chicken, rice, broth, broccoli and all cooked in one vessel.  I am, indeed, a pressure cooker junkie and will be coming up with more and more and more ideas for you. 

In the mean time, you might want to run out and buy an electric pressure cooker.  This Nesco is available at a number of stores as well as their website.  I got my original Nesco at Walmart and it didn't give me a moment of worry.  The new one is working out beautifully and I anticipate a long, loving relationship.  

I see the Nesco also makes a counter roaster, I may have to get my hands on one of those, I've never used one and I think it might have to be my new toy. 

Go cook something, let me know how it turns out! 

/enjoy

Chicken and Bechemel (yet another way to use up leftover chicken)

This is not a picture of my chicken recipe of the day, obviously, this is a picture of my two Pugs, WalterPug (right) and BabyAlice (left).

I suppose, technically, she's not a baby any more, she's 7 months old but I have a feeling that as we progress through our lives and dogs come and dogs go, whether she's the youngest of the herd or not, she'll always be BabyAlice.

They are my constant companions in the kitchen.  I try to think it's because they love me but lately, I am starting to believe the hype, they don't love me, they love what I drop! :)

I love them and thought they needed some screen time.

Ok, the food, that's why we are here.

I've been thinking about it lately and I do realize I cook a lot of chicken.  I like chicken.  Chicken is cheap and you can do about 2,387,875 things with it. I always have chicken leftover somewhere in this house.  I am starting to think it's a serious problem but not one that I'll deal with at the moment.  At the moment, I have half a chicken that needs tending to and I don't want to do the same thing with it I've done before.

I've been in bed for 2 days with a horrible stomach plague.  I have a hankering for something warm, gooey, unctuous and that will let me eat it out of a bowl with something soft, something crunchy, something green and something creamy.

Hello new pots and pans (that's another post) how YOU doin?  Let's cook something.

*Oh and for regular readers.  I'm going to write these posts in this format; Recipe first, short version instruction, long winded blather on and on describing every moment in tine with a million photographs version, end. So you can get in and out quickly if you've no time for my nattering. O____O

Tracys Chicken with Bechemel and Broccoli
(you bet it's like a fake version of my fake chicken divan-ish, sometimes imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!)

half a cooked chicken
2 Tablespoons butter
2 Tablespoons flour
thyme
pepper
salt
nutmeg
milk (3-4 cups?)
frozen broccoli
butter
Ritz crackers
Gruyere cheese, or sharp old cheddar or none

The short (don't make me read your commentary, just tell us how you made it) instructions: 

Make a roux, make thick bechemel, cool.
Pour over broccoli cuts and sliced, cooked, chicken.
Add a little grated cheese on top and some crackers and butter!
Bake about 40-45 minutes in a hot oven.
Serve with plain, steamed rice.
Be happy.

Here's the play by play and long version commentary 

Melt a couple tablespoons of butter in a pan and add the same amount of all purpose flour, whisk around a bit.

  
The trick to "corner" cleaning with a whisk is to push with the palm of your hand around the edge and it'll get any dry bits from the sides :)  no need for spatulas!  *chefy trick!* Stir it around for a minute or so then add about 2 cups of cold milk.  Don't worry about adding gradually, just dump it in and keep whisking.
  
Add some thyme, salt, pepper and nutmeg. I use whole nutmeg and this cutie pie little grater that holds the nutmeg in the top, cool.
  

Stir until it boils, it's still pretty thin here

  

Add more milk once it comes to a boil and let it go Volcano.  It'll be thick and molten and bubbly.  I like it to be on the thick side here considering I'm going to lay it over chicken and bake it, it'll thin out in the cooking in the oven.  This looks good.  Pour it into a 4 cup measure to cool, cover it with cling wrap and let it just wait for you.
  
Butter your favorite 9inch round pie plate and put some frozen broccoli in it.  I use the 'cuts' rather than 'florets', they are more delicious, taste more like broccoli, have more taste and texture than just florets and are much less expensive.
  

Here's my half a roasted chicken, it's the leftover from the Roast Chicken in a Bundt Pan recipe. It was a gigantic hit and the only reason there's some left over is because I dished it up and then packed it away and then got sick and when I'm sick, no one cooks so it was waiting for me.
 

 Pull off the wing, leg and thigh and breast. 

  

Flip the backbone and pull back the skin, seriously, this matters. On each side of the backbone, you'll see the "oyster"  this is the best part of any ANY roast chicken, of any chicken any way you cook it.  It's cooks treat.  Slide your thumb down into the depression, a little oyster shaped indent in the bone and it'll slip out.
  
Get the other side too.  These are the two hollows, always get this meat!  I steal it from the pressure cooker chicken as soon as I open it because I cook that one upside down.  That's another post, I'm doing video with that one, won't be long!
  
Put all the bones, the skin and the jelly/fat that's in the bottom of your pan and put it in your new cookware :D  Cover with water, bring up to a boil and simmer, with a lid on for 20-30 minutes.  Strain it and you have some killer, quickie, roast chicken stock.  I will be using to cook pasta or dumpling in tomorrow or the next night and it's free!
   

Ok, stock doing it's thing, after the de-boning, slice the chicken and lay it over the broccoli. When the bechemel is cool, drape (look how chef-y I am getting in the new year!) the sauce thickly! over the chicken and broccoli. 

  

Grate a very little bit of Gruyere over the sauce then maybe breadcrumbs if you'd like or not, if you'd like and put it in the oven for about 30 minutes. 

  
I decided I did need crunch so I grabbed a handful of my favorite salty, buttery, Ritz crackers.  Place said crackers into your Magic Bullet blender cup and blend for 2 seconds and you have crumbs!
  
Ah, look at my chef-y crumb scattering!  Now, don't tell anyone but yes, I did melt butter and drizzle it all over the top.  C'mon, I've been ill and starved for food and cooking!
  

425 degree oven, top third, 40 minutes.  I'll meet you back here with beauty shots.

     

Serve with plain rice or noodles or buttered or brown rice or pasta or salad or nothing. I think this is a keeper.  I will admit it's so very similar to my fake divan but this doesn't have the denseness and it feels fresher and lighter and I think I'm adding it to my regular rotation. 

/enjoy

THE STOCK

Ok, so after 30 minutes of simmering, I strained the stock and got 4 cups, of free, golden, delicious, roast chicken stock.  I'll pop it in the fridge to de-fat it.  I will scrape any fat that rises to the top into my "chicken fat" jar in the fridge for use another day.  I will then separate the stock into 1 cup plastic containers or bags and throw them in the freezer or use them to boil up noodles or dumplings or just have as hot broth the next time I'm hit with the plague of the century, like the one that hit me on my Birthday this past Saturday night and put me in bed for 2 days.  Nasty stuff that but next time, I'll have this broth to soothe me. 

  

Make your own any time you have bones,  You'll be happy. 

/enjoy