Oriental Style Peachy Slow Cooker Chicken

Having seen that Laura and Nazima had selected peaches as their one ingredient challenge this month, I bought myself a punnet of nectarines as I prefer them as their skins are not fuzzy!! I was going to make something sweet but then decided to make a savoury dish using my slow cooker. I didn't really know what do, but I remembered that chicken and mango complement each other well so I figured that peaches/nectarines should too and opted for an oriental style dish. I then basically used whatever I could find in my fridge and store cupboard, which is why this recipe is a bit uhm well unique I guess!! And I cooked it all in my slow cooker which made it very easy.

(I called it peachy chicken as I thought this had a nicer ring to it than nectarine chicken!)

(serves 4)

To make it you will need

1 whole chicken 

(chicken pieces would work but obviously cooking times may vary, as does a whole chicken depending on its size)

4 nectarines/peaches - 3 peeled and sliced into chunks & 1 left whole

3 peppers, deseeded and cut into chunks

1 bunch of spring onions coursely chopped

    1 chicken stock cube

1 tsp garlic 

1 tsp chinese 5 spice

1 tsp ground ginger

2 tbsp soy sauce

2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce

100ml boiling water 

Noodles or rice (up to you and enough to serve 4 people) - I only had super noodles in my cupboard !!

cornflour 

peas, mange tout, babycorn (or any other stir fry veg you may like to throw in)

Then you need to

Place the peaches/nectarines, spring onions and peppers in the bottom of the slow cooker

Place the chicken on top, slash the thighs 

In a bowl or measuring jug, add the stock cube, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, sweet chilli sauce, chinese 5 Spice and water and mix well.

Stuff the whole peach/nectarine into the neck of the chicken

Pour the marinade over the chicken, put the lid on and turn to high and cook for 4-5 hours (you could cook on low for approx 8 hours if you prefer)

Once cooked, remove from the slow cooker and remove the meat from the bones (which happens naturally due to the way its been cooked) and put to one side

You will need to remove the fat from the sauce thats left in the bottom of the slow cooker, I dont have one of those jugs that has 2 spouts, so I did what I once saw a cook do on TV and I placed some kitchen roll over the top of the sauce to soak up the excess fat.

Now, because I added the fruit and vegetables from the start they are rather mushy by the end of the allotted cooking time, so I blended mine a bit to make a thicker sauce -  if you prefer your veg more crisp then don't add them until maybe an hour before the end. You may also need to add some cornflour to the sauce to thicken it slightly which you can do over a low heat on the hob by transferring the sauce to a saucepan.

(as I had to use super noodles due to not having any normal noodles, I didn't need cornflour as I cooked the noodles in my sauce on the hob.)

Then simply steam some other vegetables to add some crunch and dish up

I added some extra sweet chilli sauce to mine too but that is optional.

It actually tasted ok and had a nice sweet tang to the sauce. In fact it probably tasted better than it looks or sounds to be honest! Certainly, my OH ate it and didn't say anything bad about it (result!)

I am linking this up to 

and also 

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