Fricassee Fricassee Fricassee

What's easier than slow-cooker dinner? Slow-cooker dinner left-overs, of course!

Wednesday night is often left-over night. Which is nice because it gives me a bit of a break mid-week, just when I start to lose my steam. So here's the scoop on the slow-cooker fricassee I made on Monday. I found the original recipe on allrecipes.com and changed it up just a bit. I had never made fricassee before, but as it turns out, I think it is very similar to caccitore. Which I have also never made. Interestingly, both words are very fun to say. fricassee fricassee fricassee caccitore caccitore caccitore

I don't typically care much for chicken with tomato sauce, but this was a bit different from what I was expecting, and ended up being quite yummy. I brined the 4 lbs of chicken legs in a salt and sugar bath and mixed the tomato concoction the night before and left both in the fridge in ziplock bags (what else?). Andrew didn't have to be at work early, so he popped it all into the slow cooker for me, so it wouldn't have to cook for 12 hours. (Thanks Andrew. Good job!) Oh yeah, and I took the skin off the chicken, so there wouldn't be a ton of grease in the SC. Very unappetizing.

The chicken was on sale for 99 cents a pound, so again, a very cheap meal. Are you noticing a trend?

If you don't have the super-monster size slow cooker, I would half this, as it filled the SMSC to the top.

Cuban Slow Cooker Chicken Fricassee

2 large onions, chopped (not too small)
2 tablespoons chopped garlic (or more, if you don't want anyone kissing you good-night)
1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce

1 large can plus 1 small can diced tomatoes (I think that's about 45oz)
1 cup dry white wine (or chicken stock)

1/4 cup sofrito (in the Spanish aisle of the store, near the Goya stuff)
1 tablespoon cumin
salt and pepper to taste
4 pounds chicken leg quarters, skin removed

1. Place chicken in bottom of crock pot. (I use those crock pot liners. Who wants to have to scrub out a pot that's been cooking for 8 hours??)
2. Combine other ingredients and pour over chicken.
3. Cook on low 7-8 hours, or until chicken is cooked.
4. Serve over brown rice with a can of black beans and corn tossed in. Delish.

Pretty easy, eh? There were some comments on the allrecipes site, that said the recipe provided, slightly different from the above, was lacking flavor, so people recommended the sofrito and sazon. I did not know what the sazon was, so I checked it out in the store.

Apparently, SAZON is Spanish for MSG.

So I left it out. I don't know why really, but I figure if it shouldn't be in my Chinese take-out, it shouldn't be in my slow-cooker.