40 Clove Chicken in the CrockPot

I say this with my best friend in mind...don't fear the roaster chicken in the crockpot. You can do it!!!! Bad things will not happen! Yooou Can Dooooo it!

Ok. Seriously, Crock pot chicken with 40 cloves of garlic by Crepes of Wrath is a most awesome roaster chicken recipe. It isn't one of those dump and go recipes, but it is worth the extra effort. Really, all the extra effort is used in pealing 40 cloves of garlic. Even with the little Youtube link that Crepes of Wrath provides that demonstrates how easy it is to peel garlic, 40 cloves is still going to take a bit of time. Again I say it is so worth it.

The only change I made to this recipe was by replacing the white wine with white grape juice. The recipe says you can omit the wine, but I figured since I had the juice I should use it. I wanted to have a bit of liquid in the crockpot to help speed up the cooking.

Speaking of speeding up the cooking, after 3 hours on low my chicken was seriously undercooked. This is probably due to my particular crockpot. I always forget that the low setting on my large oval crockpot is lower than most. I turned up the heat to high and came back an hour and a half later and everything was perfectly cooked. (This is also why there is no photo, we were all so hungry that the chicken was carved up and mutilated before I got around to remembering I wanted to take a picture for this blog entry.)

Even though the chicken got a bit mangled while checking for done-ness, the meat was still exceptionally moist. So much so that Blockette squealed, "OHHH! It's so juicy and tender!" after she took her first bite. Now if you've already checked that link out you might be saying right now, "Well it was probably the gravy that made the meat so tender." Au contraire mon frere. Blockette opted out of the gravy. Yet another point that leads me to believe she is indeed an alien from outer space. I mean Mrblocko and I subscribe to the Homer Simpson theory of drinking eight glasses of gravy a day.

If you are thinking of skipping the gravy step because you are, like me, a lazy person. Get. Yourself. Motivated. Get up off your chair, do not pass go and make the drippings and garlic into some gravy baby. (Not to be confused with gravy made from babies...that's a whole 'nuther post.) This is hands down my favorite gravy ever in the whole history of gravy making. When I was making the gravy and I thought it was done simmering, I tested it for seasoning. As soon as that sweet sauce hit my tongue, my eyes rolled back in my head and I started making all kinds of scary unintelligible noises.

I must have made a fairly big production about it because Blockette came bounding into the kitchen exclaiming, "I wanna try it! I wanna try it!" I looked at her and said, "Really?" She replied, "Yes please Momma!" So I let her have a taste. She agreed that the gravy was quite tasty and then said, "It is good, but I don't want any on my chicken or potatoes OK?" I patted her on her head and assured her she didn't HAVE to have any. Secretly I was doing the happy dance of joy in my head because that meant MORE for ME!

Crock Pot Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic from Crepes of Wrath
3 1/2-4 pound fryer chicken (chicken cut into serving pieces)
salt and pepper, to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
40 cloves of garlic, peeled but still whole (about 3 bulbs of garlic)
3/4 cup white wine (optional, but highly recommended)
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon butter

Spray tcrock pot with non-stick spray. Rub chicken generously with salt and pepper. Place in crock pot. Heat olive oil in a small skillet and add peeled, whole garlic. Cook 5-8 min over med heat til  garlic is golden, then add white wine and stir til liquid has mostly evaporated, 3-5 min over med heat. Pour garlic and white wine over chicken in crock pot, and sprinkle thyme and rosemary over everything. Add in bay leaf. Turn crock pot to low and cook for 3-4 hours. When ready, remove  chicken and place on a separate platter, cover with foil to retain heat. Set aside. Pour juices from pot through a mesh sieve into a pot, press garlic through sieve to form a paste. Cook gravy with T butter over med-high heat til slightly thickened, 5-8 min. Serves 3-4.