Slow Cooked Italian Seasoned Chicken

On a rainy winter night, this evening’s meal was all about comfort food. Italian seasoned slow cooked chicken with carrots and onions served on top of saffron rice.

The nexus of this meal was a crock pot. I needed one for next week’s Colonial Beach Chili Cookoff. I had created my beta (and posted it) chili last November (https://goodpointofview.com/2022/11/14/dons-chili/) in preparation for the cookoff. It was great, but I didn’t have a crock-pot to serve it in. Last year when I attended as a civilian, there were about 15 crock pots lined up, so I knew I’d need one. Usually I just cook in a dutch oven.

Now that I have a crock pot, it seemed only right that I should explore slow cooking recipes. I didn’t find one that sounded spot-on, so I worked up this, based on a few recipes I came across.

I tossed three chicken leg quarters with olive oil, Italian seasoning, black pepper and Himalayan sea salt. I put these on the bottom of the crock pot. I then put in all the cloves from a bulb of garlic. Yup, lots of garlic! On top of this I put in about 7 carrots and one sweet onion, chopped in large portions. The final edition was about a cup of chicken stock.

At noon I dialed the knob to LOW and went on with my day. Before dinner I put 2 tablespoons of Kerrygold butter into my sauce pan, added a teaspoon or so of turmeric, a pinch of saffron, a hint of salt and half a diced onion. When it looked like the onion cooked down enough, I added a heaping tablespoon of minced garlic and let it cook for another minute.

To this I added 1 1/2 cups of chicken stock and 1 cup (exactly) of jasmine rice. When this came to a boil, I gave it a good stir, put on the lid and put it on the lowest simmer. After 15 minutes I shut off the heat and let it ‘fluff’ for 5 minutes. That’s how you make the perfect saffron rice. Never use the store stuff…WAY to salty.

I plated the rice and put on the chicken, carrots and some onion. The chicken was melt-in-your-mouth tender. No knife need with this meal.