Cook whole chicken with zero meat waste?

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I'm preparing a special diet for my dog and I'd like to use a whole chicken.

My goal is to be able to cook the chicken in my crockpot (for convenience) and recover 100% (i.e., as much as I possibly can) of the meat and then strain the liquid and discard the bones.

I see a recipe ( https://www.100daysofrealfood.com/recipe-the-best-whole-chicken-in-a-crock-pot/ ) that specifically says that the chicken doesn't need any additional liquids to cook via this method in a crockpot ("Put prepared chicken on top of the onions in the slow cooker, cover it, and turn it on to high. There is no need to add any liquid"), but that seems a little hard for me to believe. Even in a crockpot, you'd still want to add some liquid, wouldn't you?

Has anyone tried cooking a whole chicken this way and if so, how did it turn out? Were you able to utilize most (all) of the meat off the bird?

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Ed
 
I made hundreds of these as a single dad.

You do not NEED liquid but you may want some. We added whatever vegetables we had so they created plenty of liquid. A single bird by itself will also do just fine. Super tender and falls off the bone. easy to strip it down...
 
No liquid is required. We use an electric roaster and in a few hours you have chicken/turkey that melts off the bone. This would be the best method to strip the meat from the bone.

Man I am hungry now.
 
My wife does this and it does indeed generate a ton of its own liquid. A couple cups' worth. It's vile and disgusting, but, to each their own. You get a slime of fat, skin, and "white goo".

I'm on a septic system so have to sort out fat vs water vs bone. Wind up giving the dog some "fatty water" on his kibble. Usually put most of the fat-water in an old coffee can and dispose in trash.

If you want to eat this yourself a bunch of celery salt and onion goes a long way to adding flavor.
 
Great...thank you all for your feedback.

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I'm thinking I'll pull the skin off before cooking so there will be less fat to skim. My dog will love all of the white-meat, dark-meat and offal that comes with the whole chicken and it will be very nutritious for her!

Ed
 
Cooking a whole roasting chicken in a crock pot is going to generate a LOT of liquid on it's own. It's going to be floating in it. You'll obviously have a lot of bone, cartilage, connective tissue and skin to deal with, but like said, it should fall right apart making it easy to get the bits you want.
 
That's funny you mention a pressure cooker. I've been thinking hard about buying one.

1.) How long do you think it would take to cook an entire chicken?

2.) Can you recommend a good pressure cooker?

Ed
 
Hello Ed,
Another idea to consider is getting a clay pot and cooking your chicken in the oven. We bought one several years ago and it most definitely gets the chicken tender. A little bit of garlic , olive oil and cayenne produces some nice drippings also that is good to dip with pita or naan bread. :--))
 
I would try a flea market, yeah pun intended to get a nice used pressure cooker. I have gotten 4 in years past for myself and family. Walmart sells Presto and a large one you could get four birds in at a time. Look online to see what it would take to cook but its going to be fast.
 
6 hours in a larger crock pot, on low.
Season the outside with whatever.
I put a lemon in the cavity for moisture; you can't taste it when it's cooked.
Pull it out and it falls apart mostly.
 
Originally Posted By: JTK
Cooking a whole roasting chicken in a crock pot is going to generate a LOT of liquid on it's own. It's going to be floating in it. You'll obviously have a lot of bone, cartilage, connective tissue and skin to deal with, but like said, it should fall right apart making it easy to get the bits you want.

You basically want to feed everything to the dog though, minus the bones. We used to feed our large dogs raw chicken backs and they would gobble them up like popcorn.
Depending on the breed and the feeding setup, feeding them the whole chicken cooked medium rare wouldn't be a terrible idea, maybe halve or quarter if necessary. Ours get lots of cooked and uncooked bones, but they are careful how they eat them and have space to take their time, so we've never had a problem. We have Maremma's from the mountains in Italy and the breed is a few thousand years old with all their ancestors getting fed spare sheep and goat parts so they seem to handle bones just fine.
 
If you want to give the whole bird to the dog, then quarter it, and give it to the dog. Raw is better anyway, as no nutrients are altered by heat. I tend to not give mine any cooked bones as they are more brittle when cooked and splinter. It may be a wives tale of perforated bowels and what not, but I throw the cooked chicken bones out (boil the life out of em first). The cow stuff seems to be ok. Barley, buckwheat and whatever veggies I have for him. If you can salvage the bones, and give them to the dog before cooking it is best. I have all mine frozen and just whack the drumsticks apart, then boil.
Oh and no onions.
 
Originally Posted By: CT8
The fat is good for the dogs.
Not if your dogs' pancreas doesn't function...which is my case.

Ed
 
Around here I run the whole chicken thru my Big Easy oil less turkey fryer. After we're through blowing him away, what's left goes into the boiling pot to make soup. Boil for about 3 hours and use a screened spoon to fish out the bones - they look like they've been in the desert for 100 years!
Add your onion, celery, carrots etc. and your whole chicken just disappeared....
 
Oh and no onions. [/quote]
My Bernese is gassy enough, if I could just rent her out to Police for crowd dispersion I might get enough back to pay for the dog food
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