[Sca-cooks] Clay-Pot Chicken

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> Vincenzo gave a clay-pot chicken recipe:
> > I remember doing clay pot cooking and seeing the chicken
> > done to perfection, moist and falling apart.
> >
> > That was with the oven set to 480 for 80 minutes ... but
> > I had no way of telling how hot it was inside the clay pot.
> >
> > Remember that type of cooking starts with an unglazed clay
> > pot soaked in water; generally the ingredients all go in
> > together; don't preheat the oven; cook for the specified
> > time; use heavy gloves to move the pot from the oven to a
> > safe non metallic surface.
> >
> > Here's an example recipe ...
> >
> > "Roast Chicken with Brown Rice Stuffing" serves 4-6
> >
> > 1           roasting chicken (4~5 lbs)
> >    3/4 cup   sherry
> > 1 3/4 cups  chicken stock
> > 1     cup   raw brown rice
> > 2 tbsp      butter
> >              Arrowroot
> > <snip>
>
> Thanks for posting this. This sounds like it could be rather
> interesting, leading to a moist, flavorful chicken. I've saved this
> recipe to try sometime.
>
> 1) What do you use for this clay pot? Is this something you need to buy
> at a kitchen utensil place? I think I may have seen such an item, but I
> don't remember it being big enough to hold a chicken.

Stefan, there is currently a commercial item that's all the rage, called, I
believe, a "Romertopf". It's basicly an unglazed clay roaster, shaped
somewhat similarly to the more common, metal roasting pan.

 Or do you use an > unglazed flower pot from the nursery? But I thought
those had a
> drainage hole in them, and I suspect you want to contain the steam in
> the pot.

You can. Necessity is the mother of invention... You don't really need all
of the high dollar yuppy tools in order to duplicate certain traditional
cooking techniques, and this is one of them. Plugging the hole(but not too
tightly) would likely be a good idea- tinfoil works, so would a bit of clay.

> 2) Could this technique be used over a bed of coals on a fire with more
> hot coals placed around it and on top, rather than an oven? Or will
> that let dirt through the porous pot or keep something (air?) from
> passing through that you want passing through?

If I were doing it over an open fire, that's how I'd do it. Really, in this
case, you want a sealed environment without too high a heat, or else you
need a vent. I take great exception to my firepit exploding.

> 3) Any evidence of this technique being used in medieval Europe or the >
Middle East?
>
> Stefan

I think, if you look through the Florilegium, you'll find several examples
of foods being placed in damp clay and cooked in a crust of earth- that's
simply a way to do the same thing, without using a specific cooking
implement for the process. The modern method is a bit more hygenic, but an
old hunter's trick is to gut an animal, plaster it with clay, and roll it
into the fire- clam bakes and luaus are simply a variation of this. Using
the clay, after the meat has had time to cook, you break the shell, and all
the feathers or fur goes away with the shell, leaving you with, ideally,
tender and juicy meat. In modern times, since our animals are already
skinned or defeathered, and since we usually cook in expensive, heat
controlled appliances that we want to keep reasonably clean, covering a
critter with clay and shoving it in the oven would make more of a mess than
I would prefer to clean up ;-)

If you're interested in the technique, Stefan, and if you make it to
Pennsic, I'll make a point of getting some appropriate clay-ey earth, and
demonstrating for you. Rob says there's a clay bank on the farm, so I can
just bag up enough, and bring it with me (don't want to dig holes in
Cooper's property, never mind, who knows how many sumps, with Gawdknowswot
drained in them have been dug in our campsite).

Saint Phlip,
CoD

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....



-- 
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.9.3 - Release Date: 4/5/05