Eating without an oven continued: an alternative to roast chicken (From Bournemouth Echo)

Eating without an oven continued: an alternative to roast chicken

9:30am Tuesday 16th March 2010 in

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We're managing pretty well without a cooker; our two ring gas camping stove plus microwave pretty much covers all bases but on a Sunday, my stomach still craves a good roast.

So we thought we'd compromise this week. First we thought "pot roast!" but having little idea of what that actually means*, we swiftly progressed to poaching.

I've poached chicken breasts before, but never a whole chicken. It's definitely worth it.

We used:

one small free range bird

one carrot, chopped into chunks

one small leek, quartered

five spring onions

two cloves of garlic

half a lemon, cut in half again

six peppercorns

two bay leaves

one stick of lemongrass, broken into pieces

one glass white wine

Put everything in a crockpot, if you have one, add water to cover the bird, turn the heat on, leave for five hours or so.

If you DON'T have a crockpot, and I know some of you hate them, use a casserole on the hob (you'll need less cooking time because it will invariably be hotter than the crockpot, but still keep it as low as possible.

You'll know when it's done, because the bird will be falling apart. Take the pieces out and use some of the stock to make a gravy (we added olives, preserved lemons, parsley and coriander).

Serve with your potato of choice - we made do with mash, and jolly nice it was too.

Should you have meat left over, you can use it and the remaining stock (drained) to make soup - just add potatoes and, if you fancy, some vegetables to the stock, cook til tender, add the chicken to warm through then blend well.

* In fact when I was younger, and reading American teen novels, pot roast was something to be abhorred....