SC - cheesecake

[Mark Harris]

Greetings all!
Prompted by the discussions of "chicken on a string" here, my lord and I
decided to try this at Pennsic.  It was a success, and here is the
play-by-play.

I asked a camp member making a town run to buy me the biggest roasting
chicken she could find, assuming that most of the clan would at least try it
(I was right).  She brought back a 7.6 lb monster of a chicken.
 Unfortunately, it was mostly frozen, so much so that I couldn't get the bag
of giblets out of the cavity and I needed to start cooking it soon.
So I put it in a pot of water, set it on the grate over the fire, and
parboiled it for about 1/2 hour.  At the end of that time, I could get the
giblets out, and I had the beginnings of a nice pot of chicken stock.  Since
the firepit wasn't set up properly to allow me to have the chicken drip on
the veggies while cooking, I decided to boil carrots, potatoes, and onions in
the chicken stock instead.
I used two skewers at each end of the chicken, because with just one it was
bending a lot from the weight.  I put one set through the wings/breast area
and the other through the legs/thighs and body.  I had to replace the one
through the wings/breast area, because the first time I tried to hang it up,
it wasn't centered properly and the chicken slid off the skewer and landed in
the (fortunately non-flaming) end of the firepit.  
After washing the chicken off and resetting the skewers (making sure you go
through the wings and body makes it much more stable), I tied clothesline to
either end of the skewers, right next to the body, and made sure it was
balanced before moving it from the table I was working on.  I hung it up and
started it spinning.
We had to restart the spin every two-three minutes or so, but it wasn't
really a problem.  Everyone in camp was watching it spin, and many pictures
were taken.  We cooked the chicken for about 3 hours, turning it over twice
in the process when it became obvious that the breast end needed more
cooking.  It got nice and brown.  Towards the end of the cooking time we put
hot coals under the bird to help it along a little, because we were getting
hungry, and it was getting dark.
When cutting the bird, we determined that there were a few areas that weren't
quite cooked, so we quartered it and put it on the grate over the fire fof a
few minutes to finish cooking.   The veggies had boiled nicely in the stock.
 Most of us ate them with variations of adding butter, salt, and pepper.
It was an excellent dinner, and a lot of fun to cook.  Next time I'll try
adding some spicing to it, but it was good just the way it was.

Brangwayna Morgan
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