slug chicken in the firepit

We've started experimental cooking in our firepit, would you believe! Spurred on by our unbelievably excellent damper, cooked in tin foil the other night and et with butter, herbs and cheese, we promptly went to the camping shop and purchased a cast iron camp oven. Basically it's a big black pot with a lid and weighs a ton. You don't want to drop this sucker on your foot, I promise you.

After realising that the promised 'recipe book inside' was actually nowhere to be found, we commenced extensive research via Mr Google. We learnt to use heat beads, that camp ovens need to be heated up first, and that once they're hot you don't need a whole lot of heat beads to cook stuff with. 

So we launched our first experiment.  Slug Chicken.  You'll see why... We sort of used our own made up recipe using ideas and inspiration from our vast experience (!) of firepit cooking.

First, light the heat beads and when they're hot,
heat up the camp oven like this. I don't know how long this
is supposed to take, but we did this for about 45 minutes and
it was plenty hot enough.

Prep the food. That bowl there is full of spuds, onions, chorizo, carrot, capsicum, garlic cloves (whole), and apple quarters that wouldn't fit up the chook's jacks. The chook just has a fistful of fresh herbs (thyme, rosemary, dill) in there, plus apple quarters. We oiled, salted and peppered the chook. A bottle of white wine stands at the ready..  

It's wise to add stuff to the camp oven away from the heat. As soon as we dribbled oil in, it was so hot it started smoking. We added onion quarters, garlic and chorizo for a bit to start them browning. 

We also browned the chicken like this too, and tipped in the rest of the bowl
of veg, plus more rosemary. We also added a generous slug (hence the name) of white wine. By now the camp oven was not so blisteringly hot.

The camp oven is positioned in the firepit with most of the heat
beads surrounding it and some on top. Then we watch and wait (we learnt this skill of watching/waiting in our adventist days). We waited an hour and a half, and by then we could smell the beautiful flavours all over the back yard.

This is what we saw when we removed the lid! I can't repeat what I said. But it rhymed with mark.

Having apple and wine in this was fantastic and I would do it again. The apple went gooey and was freaking fantastic. The chicken was 'fall-aparty' cooked.

ooh, hot! so's the chicken!

it's full of wonderful flavour. So easy. And that, my friends,
is Slug Chicken in the FirePit!