Easy Poached Doggie Chicken

Most of the chicken meat I give Gracie comes from fryer chickens I buy at the grocery store. I often roast these chickens in the oven or cook them in a slow cooker. Recently I started cooking them another, easy way: poaching them in a pot of seasoned water.

To poach a chicken I first wash it under cold running water, removing the bag containing the neck and organ meats from inside the chicken. I then remove most of the chicken skin (using a kitchen scissors) and put the chicken in a large pot. I add about an inch or two of water to the pot, pour a little dry sherry wine over the chicken (for flavor), then sprinkle it with seasonings: lots of parsley, a tiny bit of salt and pepper, some rosemary, basil and sage.

I also wash the chicken neck and organ meat and place them in a separate, smaller, pot with a little water and dry sherry wine.

I put both pots on the stove top, covered, over medium flames, until they just reach a boil. Then I lower the flame and poach the chicken and organ meats in simmering liquid until they're done. The chicken usually takes a more than an hour (I cook it until the leg meat falls off the bone and the juices run clear) but the neck and organ meats only take about 25 minutes. I check both about halfway through their cooking times to make sure the water hasn't boiled out of the pot.

After both have cooled to room temperature I cut up the organ meats (heart, gizzard, liver), add it to the neck meat (which I remove from the neck bone) and store it in a container.

I then remove as much meat as possible from the chicken, including some of the very soft, white cartilage (NOT the harder cartilage). I cut it all up and mix it together (so the dark and white meats are mixed together) and store it in containers in the freezer for future meals.