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. 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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We hope that you have enjoyed perusing all our our new, unique and exciting Potjie designs - believe us when we say that a lot of fun and experimental cooking had to take place, to come up with these very unique and versatile designs - The Krazy African
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