During the preparations for Hurricane Sandy, I was researching cooking in the fireplace incase of loss of electricity and I found several sites, including videos, explaining how to cook a chicken in front of a fireplace. Well, once the seed is planted, until I see it through, it begs to be watered.
Last night, I just couldn't ignore it any longer. I stopped by the store and picked up all the necessary tools; whole chicken-check, meat thermometer- check, trussing needle- didn't have one, so I picked up a set of nut cracking tools which had a long scraping thing to get the excess nuts from their shells hoping it would work, and butchers string- again, the store didn't have it, but I went to the meat department, asked the guy if he knew where I could get it and he gave me a bunch from the store for FREE. Gotta love that!
On arrival from home, I put the video on youtube on while I used the spices and seasonings I had available in my pantry to season the chicken. First, I rubbed in salt and pepper, then ground ginger, then rubbed olive oil, red wine vinegar and a little soy sauce on top. Then I decided garlic cloves may be delicious, so I rubbed those on too and then shoved those under the skin in multiple places. I covered with plastic and let it sit about a 1/2 hour.
Next came the tricky part, trussing the bird. Let me inform you that I was vegetarian for 16.5 years and my children, except for my 3 yr old were vegetarian as well. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I started craving meat and at the same time my preteen boys wanted to try meat and well, we've slowly become meat eaters ever since, with exception of my 8 year old. So as you see, cooking meat is relatively new for me as is shoving a needle like object into something that looks rather like a baby, but I try to make it less gross or intimidating and held the chicken up like a puppet to lighten the mood. Seeing as though the nut scraping tool does not have a place to thread the string, I tied a knot, which after many different trials, I placed the tip into and then wrapped the string around the tool and began to truss the bird as best as I could ensuring no hanging body parts and making the bird secured to the string to be hung.
Next, I made sure a nail was placed in the center of my mantel so I could tie the string and that it could hold a heavy bird. I tied the string around the nail so that the chicken was about 6 inches from the hearth and placed a pan to catch drippings underneath.
This is where I believe I went wrong. Even though my fire had been going for hours, we had let it cool down and I should have heated it up so that there were very hot coals, but I tied the bird up thinking that it would take at the most, an hour and a half. I made sure I basted the chicken with the oil, vinegar, soy sauce and salt and pepper anytime it looked dry and I kept the string wet with water so it would not catch fire. Also the bird spins due to the heat but sometimes it needs a little turn to keep it going.
The directions said to check the temp at an hour. It wasn't even near warm. So we waited some more. Two hours in. Nope. My husband decided the chicken wasn't close enough so he hooked a wire to the fireplace to loop around the string to bring it closer and it helped. The chicken began to roast beautifully.
Tons of firewood and FIVE hours later and the chicken finally reached the correct temp so I cut the chicken down, covered and let it rest for 15 minutes. Even though it was now 12:30 am, I had to try it. Honestly, it was the best chicken I have ever tasted! Not sure if it was worth the long wait or the amount of firewood we went through and it has me second guessing my original plan of cooking the turkey and pie in the fireplace for Thanksgiving, but I can add it to the list of things I've done that are out of the norm and a little glimpse of what it might be like to be homesteading. I definitely recommend trying it if you ever have the time!
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