An Experiment

A friend recently asked me if I know how to bottle chicken. The answer was “No.” I did offer to help her figure it out. Canning with a pressure cooker always makes me a little tense, so I decided it would be better to experiment on my own, rather than inviting an audience to watch me blow up my kitchen. I decided to do a Judy in the Kitchen version of Pioneer Woman Cooks. So here goes my first attempt to chronicle “Chicken in a Jar.”



The first thing you must do is prepare your jars. Run your finger around the rim of each jar to check for nicks or chips that might keep the lid from sealing. The jars should be cleaned well. You can wash them by hand if you like. I prefer to put them in the dishwasher. I use the hottest water temperature and the Heat Dry setting.

Put a half teaspoon of salt in each jar.



Wash your chicken and trim off any fat. I bought boneless skinless chicken breasts, but you can use other parts or even do a whole chicken.



A pint jar holds a pound of chicken. Two chicken breasts per jar is about right. Since some breasts are larger than others, you might have to trim a small piece off or add a small piece so that your jar is filled to within a half inch of the top.



Use a clean damp cloth to clean off the rim and neck of the jar. Any tiny piece of food, lint or fleck of anything on the rim will keep the lid from sealing.



Run water over your new lids to make sure they are free of dust or particles. Place them on your filled jars and screw the bands on tightly. Put the rack in the bottom of your pressure cooker and arrange the jars in the cooker. Add three quarts of water. Adjust the lid and screw the knobs on tightly. Adjust the knobs opposite each other at the same time to assure that the lid stays level. If the lid is crooked, liquid can escape during the pressuring process.



Place the pressure cooker on the stove and turn heat on high. Make sure that the steam escape valve is open.

Allow the water to boil until steam escapes freely through the valve for two or three minutes. Then close the escape valve --



and allow the pressure inside the cooker to come up to ten pounds.




The trickiest part of the process is to now keep the pressure at exactly 10 pounds by regulating the heat up and down. The chicken has to process for 75 minutes. You can then remove the pressure cooker from the heat and let it sit until the pressure gauge returns to zero. At that point you can open the escape valve to vent any remaining pressure inside. Remove the lid and lift the jars out onto a towel. Allow them to cool completely before moving them.

So now the first part of the experiment is complete. Didn’t blow up the kitchen. Didn’t break any jars. They all sealed. They look good. Now we just have to try eating them. I think we'll try chicken salad sandwiches for lunch. Will there be a post tomorrow?