A seasoned bird and spuds are placed in the Potjie
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Krazy Kooking at it's best!!
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As with any good cooking, making a roast using a potjie, is a
lot of fun and is creative cooking. The whole idea is to show the
versatility of the Potjie pot.
I will describe below as best I can, how I, at the same time, roasted
and smoked this very large chicken .
Requirements
- #4 Potjie Pot & lid
- 10" Round Griller
- Charcoal Briquetts
- Whole Chicken
- Your Dry Spice Blend
- Small Red Potatoes
- Aluminum Foil
- Wood Smoking Shavings
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It
must be remembered that to have fun while cooking, is an essential part
of any cooking and applies most definitely in this instance - I insist!!
As with most good cookouts, it is best to start with a glass of good wine
or ale before lighting up a small pile of charcoal. While the coals are
warming up, place the wood shavings (I like using green Mesquite Beans)inside
on the Potjie's belly and liberaly cover them with a square of Aluminum
Foil (The foil will ultimately catch all the drippings from the chicken
and if removed carefully after cooling, will leave your Potjie clean).
Place the round griller over the foil and place the chicken (that you
have rubbed with the dry spice) onto the griller. The griller will keep
the bird from touching the bottom of the pot and free from lying in the
drippings.
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Now you are ready to start cooking, so place the lid on the pot
and set the Potjie over the coals. Remember that once a Potjie Pot gets hot it doesn't take much to keep it that way. As the potjie heats, so will
the wood shavings start to smoke within the pot. Wait until the
entire pot heats up and the lid is hot, then place additional coals
in the gutter of the lid.
Make sure that you keep a seperate bed of briquette coals going,
as you will need to replenish some of the coals as they burn out.
Once the bird looks like it is getting close to getting done, cover
the entire lid (as in the picture above) with coals and this will
generate the heat needed on top to brown the chicken.
This whole process should take about 2 hours, so make sure that
you sit back and enjoy your beer/wine/soda or whatever brew you
are stilling that day, not to forget, the company around you.
After you see that the bird is ready, remove the coals from the
lid with one of your selection of tools. Then you can gently lift
the bird out of the pot with whatever tools work for you (I used
2 serving forks), and place it on a platter.
If you carefully lift the hot drippings lying in the foil, out of
the potjie, you can use it for making gravy or whatever you like
doing with drippings. Now you will find that you have prepared probably
the tastiest and most succulent chicken that you have ever tasted.
Once it gets to cleaning time, you will have a clean pot with a
few charred wood shavings at the bottom of the Potjie - remove them
and wipe out the pot and oil it before putting in storage until
your next culinary adventure.
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| It tastes even better than it looks |
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