It may seem strange that I post so many recipes on this website, but as someone who cooks a lot, it makes it easy to find recipes that I cook often but may forget the exact measurements or times or ingredients. So it’s a quick reference, plus these recipes are really good, so I thought it’d be nice to share.
I have a giant 6 Quart KitchenAid crockpot that I use all the time. A few times a week. I have the “Easy Serve Lid” but if I bought one again, which I would, I’d just get the regular lid, for $24 less. I rarely use it. Somebody might, if they use it to serve from, but it’s not helpful to me. This is the best slow cooker I’ve ever used, for a variety of reasons. If you’re ever in the market, I suggest giving the one I linked to up there a close look.
Chicken Bog
Chicken Bog is a South Carolina dish, called Chicken Purleau in Sumter. But it’s known as Chicken Bog everywhere else. It’s an inexpensive, hearty dish that goes a long way. It’s really tasty and uses rice, which is a southern staple. It’s usually found at barbeque joints in SC and family dinner tables when there’s a crowd to feed.
I’ve made it many times and have learned a few things. It’s easy to make, but it’s also easy to make where it’s disappointing, which may lead people to not make it again, which would be a shame. That’s because it needs lots of seasoning. The rice and chicken don’t provide a lot of flavor on their own. A common way to cook it is to boil the chicken and use the stock to cook the rice in. That boils a lot of flavor out of the chicken. And sometimes I use chicken breasts, which really need to be heavily seasoned. But it’s a very lower-fat option. Cooking a whole chicken renders a lot of fat which needs to be skimmed. But the trade-off is more flavor, of course.
A store-bought rotisserie chicken could be used as a time-saver. But there are a lot of additives you may not want to eat in those, plus the convenience erases some of the value cooking your own provides. Cooking a whole chicken couldn’t be easier, and there are multiple ways to do it. Bake it, boil it, slow-cook it, grill it, and so on.
The sausage you use is your own choice. I’ve had every type imaginable in it and it’s all good. Cooking it in a pan beforehand renders a lot of flavors, especially if you scrape and use the fond from it. Andouille is great but higher-fat. Kielbasa is also a favorite but not the lowest fat. Smoked turkey sausage is the lowest fat but not the most satisfying.
If you boil or slow-cook the chicken, you’ll end up with a good base for chicken stock. I put in chopped onion, a few celery stalks and carrots chopped, and maybe a green pepper chopped up along with salt and pepper and some garlic while it cooks. I skim the fat and add 33% less sodium chicken broth to make about 5 cups to cook the bog in.
A tip: when you’re cooking the bog in a pot, versus a crockpot, you have to be careful not to overcook it and burn the rice. If you do, it’s ruined.
So with that prologue out of the way, here’s the recipe:
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 14 ounces smoked sausage, halved and sliced 1/2-inch thick
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 5 cups chicken broth, divided
- 2 cups uncooked medium grain rice
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 1 chicken (about 3 pounds), meat removed and shredded
- 3 stalks celery
- 3 carrots
- green pepper
Instructions for slow-cooker
- In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and sausage; cook until sausage is lightly browned. Add garlic and cook 1 minute longer; transfer to slow cooker.
- Stir in 4 cups broth, rice, salt and pepper. Cook, covered, on low until rice is tender, 4-5 hours. Stir in chicken and remaining broth. Cook, covered, on low until chicken is heated through, about 30 minutes
Instructions for chicken-in-the-pot
- In a large pot, add celery, carrot, onion, pepper, seasoning, and chicken. Cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour.
- Remove chicken and reserve liquid. Shred chicken and discard skin and bones. Set aside.
- Skim fat from liquid in the pot. Strain vegetables. (Quick tip: put in fridge or freezer to let the fat solidify faster, and use a fat-strainer)
- Add broth to stock to make 5 cups. Add rice, sausage, and chicken.
- Bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook until rice is done, about 20 minutes. Make sure it doesn’t burn. Don’t lift the lid off the pot any more than necessary.
- Fluff with fork and stir. Season as desired, if necessary.
The Chicken Bog in this photo is too soupy. This is before the rice has been cooked, obviously, and this looks like long-grain rice and chopped chicken instead of shredded, which is fine but not authentic. It should be fluffy rice and chicken and sausage when done.
Some notes after I published this
I’ve been making this a lot lately, Autumn being the perfect season for it, and it just being so cheap and easy and my daughter likes it, so I’ve been making it about every other week until we get tired of it. So I’ve been trying different little ways to see what makes it better.
I’m cooking my whole chicken in my big crockpot and using aromatics to keep the chicken from sitting on the bottom. Some carrots, celery, coarsely chopped onions(like in quarters-coarse). This is an excellent way to use past-their-prime vegetables. I hate wasting food and try to use everything for something. So putting a bed of vegetables on the bottom of a slow-cooker with a chicken on top is a great way to make some stock.
I put cut up oranges or lemons inside the bird while it cooks. I buy tangerines and apples for my daughter which often she doesn’t eat the whole thing or the bag of citrus is too much. So I’ll stuff the bird with what’s left of an apple or a bag of tangerines that we’re not going to be able to eat before they expire. Same with onions or garlic cloves.
I’ll season the bird with chopped garlic, some seasoning without salt, lemon juice, or whatever strikes me or I have on hand. I cook it on high for 3-1/2 hours and let it cool in the cooker until I can handle it to remove the bones and skin and fat. I use three big bowls for that process, which isn’t the most fun, but it’s necessary and what adds the love to the dish. I remove the aromatics from the cooker and pour the drippings into a separation/strainer/measuring cup thing I have to yield usually 1 cup of stock. I discard as much fat as I can.
Meanwhile, I cut the sausage on the bias into slices and render it in a deep non-stick Calphalon pot. I remove that and pour out the grease but save what’s cooked on the bottom, which is fond. I put the pot on the burner and turn it up to high and once it’s good and hot, I slowly pour some chicken broth in it while stirring to release the fond. You don’t want to burn the fond and you don’t want to burn off the broth you’re pouring in and you don’t want to warp your pot, which putting cold liquid not a hot pot or pan will do. So just watch what you’re doing.
Once you’ve scraped the fond from the bottom and the bottom of the pot is “clean”, pour your stock and broth into the pot to make 5 cups. I find 1 cup from cooking the bird plus a 32 oz. box of Swanson’s no-sodium Chicken Broth is perfect. Bring that to a boil. It shouldn’t take but a few minutes.
Pour 2 cups of medium grain rice in. That’s a 1 lb bag of Minute Maid. There’s a difference between long-grain and medium grain. Don’t fool yourself. Bring back to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to a simmer and set a timer for 20 minutes.
Cooking rice is what throws most people off. Cooking rice properly isn’t easy. You have to know your range and what “High” heat and “simmer” means to it, your pot(how heavy/thick it is) and that you have a lid that fits properly. You’ll come to appreciate a glass lid so you can see what’s going on in there and determine your rice’s doneness.
Rice is done when you don’t see any bubbling going on, don’t smell anything burning, and there’s a good separation between the grains when you look through the lid. It should look moist and full, and not gluey and gloppy.
Remove the pot from the burner and carefully remove the lid. There’s a lot of steam in there. Gently fluff the rice with a large fork and make sure to fold the bottom rice up to the top and you should be good. Stir in the sausage and chicken well, season to taste, and serve.
