Last year I learned that making balls of foil for a whole chicken to sit on in the crockpot helps the chicken be more “roast” like and less falling apart. I like the convenience of the crockpot, but I really like making whole chickens, but had been unhappy with the way they came out before learning this trick.
Today I put the whole chicken on the foil balls, rubbed it with a bit of butter, squeezed a lemon onto it, then sprinkled with salt, pepper, thyme, and paprika, as well as some fresh parsley. Covered it up and cooked it on high for about 6 hours.
Postscript: I ended up pulling this out of the crockpot and roasting it at 400 for about 10 minutes to get the skin crisp. It was quite good!
That’s an awesome idea! I never would have thought of that… time to dust off the crock pot!
12/15/04
Ellen, lose the foil if you are using lemon juice, they will interact. Find something else to put the chicken on, a couple of inverted ceramic ramekins perhaps.