Chicken that tastes baked prepared in the slow cooker

I'm not a big fan of lots of slow cooker meat and poultry recipes as I often find the meat too stewed for my taste (similar to store-bought canned meat or poultry). I cooked this for almost 5 hours on High as the recipe instructs and the chicken came out like I'd baked it in the oven. The skin wasn't really crisp but the meat was juicy and still firm tho it pulled from the bone with ease.

Spicy Turmeric Chicken
From "Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Recipes for Entertaining" by Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann

The book attributes this recipe to Laura Quemada as adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's "Indian Cooking." Whatever the original source, it's a keeper. My variation on the recipe was to apply the marinade to chicken leg quarters and layer them in the crock instead of using a whole bird as directed.

We ate this for dinner hot with a rice pilaf and green beans, for lunch the next day at room temperature as part of a chef's salad, and nibbled on pieces out of the fridge in between. Didn't have any left to try it, as the book suggests, wrapped in a tortilla tho that sounds good, too.

Turmeric Marinade:
1 tbs ground cumin
1 tbs paprika
1 tbs ground turmeric
1-1/2 tsp red chile powder or 1 tsp cayenne pepper
1-1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
2-1/2 tsp salt
2 to 3 cloves garlic, to your taste, mashed to a paste
6 tbs lemon juice

One 4-pound broiler/fryer chicken or 4-pounds of chicken leg quarters

Rub inside of crock with oil.

Stir marinade ingredients together in small bowl. May use small food processor if desired.



Note: turmeric will stain surfaces yellow so use glass or stainless steel containers or utensils. May stain a light-colored slow cooker crock also. Use a disposable plastic glove to apply marinade to chicken as it will stain skin, too. (I used a plastic food bag to cover my hand while applying marinade.)

Using your hand, apply marinade generously to all sides of chicken. Place chicken in crock and cover. Note that no liquid is used with the chicken. Cook on High for 4 to 5 hours, or on Low for 7 to 9 hours, until meat pulls easily away from the bones. Enjoy!

My notes: When I prepare this again, I'm going to use my homemade garlic powder instead of the garlic cloves and I'm not going to add the lemon juice to the whole mix. I plan to divide it into two bowls and add about half the juice to one bowl. I'll apply that to the chicken and, if it's like this time, I won't need the other portion. So I will put the blend in a labeled spice jar adding the remaining amount of lemon juice when ready to prepare Spicy Turmeric Chicken again. Which won't be long if the reaction to the dish this time is anything to go by.