It took some time for me to fully utilize my 10 quart Instant Pot because I didn’t feel like I needed to cook things very quickly. Since I am retired, I have time to let things slow cook or roast in the oven. I have a sister who roasted a chicken in her Instant Pot and sent me pictures of the final result. I really just wanted to see for myself what the big deal was all about.
First of all, I have to say that I did not follow my sister’s directions the way that she told them to me. I am an experienced cook, so I will often make adjustments that I feel won’t make a difference to a particular recipe. As you can see, my chicken was falling off the bones and was over cooked. I found out from my sister that I added too much broth to the bottom of the instant pot.
She instructed that I was to add half of a can of chicken broth to the bottom of the instant pot, but I was out. I improvised and made some vegetable broth with some vegetable bouillon that I had on hand. I estimated the amount and I used too much.
I’m getting ahead of myself though. I will explain how I cooked this chicken using the correct order. I cut up a small onion, a rib of celery, some fresh garlic, a green bell pepper, some fresh rosemary, and half of a lemon.
I also gathered my spices that I was supposed to use on the outside and the inside of my whole chicken. I used Himalayan salt, lemon pepper, smoked paprika, dried thyme, 3 fresh garlic cloves, and onion powder. After I washed and patted dry my chicken, I added a coat of olive oil to the outside so that the spices would stick to the chicken.
My sister told me to put the cut vegetables inside the cavity of the chicken. I substituted fresh rosemary for the fresh thyme that she told me to use. I like rosemary chicken and I did not have any fresh thyme. I did have some dried thyme that I also used.
After adding the vegetable broth to the bottom of the pot, I added the stuffed chicken to the wire trivet that came with the pot. The chicken was cooked under pressure for 55 minutes. I also let the instant pot vent naturally after the time was up.
The good news is, even though it does not look like I expected it to, it was still delicious.
Bon appétit!