Col Finnie
A sure-fire way to cook a juicy chook.
Ingredients:
- A chook (a free range jobbie seems best)
- Can of beer of choice (Melbourne Bitter works fine)
- 6 or so garlic cloves (chopped up)
- 2 tsp of cumin seeds (lightly dry roasted – in a dry frypan – remove them from the pan when seeds start to crackle a bit)
- Fresh thyme
- One lemon
- Olive oil
- Rock salt
- Peppercorns (Sarawak peppercorns are brilliant)
Method:
Arc up the Weber using indirect fire method.
Put dry roasted cumin seeds, a big pinch of rock salt and 6 or so peppercorns in a mortar and pestle and grind them all up (keep it a bit chunky to get those delicious flavour hits). Add three garlic cloves and mash that to a paste in the spice mix. Finish this marinade mix with a couple of tbsp of olive oil.
Use your fingers to separate as much of the chook's skin from the meat as you can. Avoid breaking the skin. Spoon the marinade mix under the loosened skin of the chook. Massage the outside of the chook to spread the marinade under the skin.
Guzzle about a third of the can of beer. Poke a line of holes around the top part of the can. Put three or four sprigs of fresh thyme and about three chopped up garlic cloves in the can.
Grab a roasting tin, line the outside of it with aluminium foil to stop the pan getting burnt.
Sit the loaded-up can of beer in the roasting pan and push the chook, bum side down onto the can. The chook is now on the throne. Shove a half a lemon into the neck end of the chook to keep in the moisture and to add more flavour. Pour some olive oil over the chook and a sprinkle of salt.
Put the roasting pan in the centre of the Weber grill (when the Heat Beads® briquettes are nice and white-ish). Plonk the lid on the Weber. I find that you want two of the bottom vents open and the top vents (in the lid) open about half way
An hour and a half later and the chook will be done. There's so much moisture in it that you test whether it's cooked by pulling a wing away and it's done when it just falls off. If you get pre-occupied with putting a dent in the remaining stock of beer you'll find the chook will be able to stay in the barbie for two hours and still be a moist as buggery.
Be prepared for the extraction of the can to have the meat just falling off the chook. Squeeze the other half of the lemon over the chook and serve.
Joy!