Home Grown Roasted Chicken

Thaw chicken and rub all over with olive oil.

 Heat skillet on stove top, grease with a little olive oil. Rub chicken liberally with coarse sea salt and fresh cracked pepper.

 Sear chicken, presentation side down (breast side down) 'till golden. Sear other side. Searing the chicken before roasting caramelizes the natural sugars in the skin and meat, bringing out a delicious flavor. I learned this from a youtube video, and have roasted my chickens this way ever since, it really makes a difference in flavor!

Keep a nice hot fire going so the oven temp doesn't drop in the middle of roasting your bird. "Biscuit" wood works great for heating up your oven (small, round, seasoned wood). Juniper burns really hot, too hot for my preference to burn it alone. But mixing it with hardwoods seems to work well. I'm still experimenting with different types of wood.

Roast the bird at about 350*-400*. At one point the temp dropped to 300*, I just added more wood and brought it back up, it didn't seem to bother it any.

For about the last half hour, I placed a sheet of aluminum foil on top to keep it from burning before it finished. Also, I kept moving the pan around, closer or farther away from the firebox and the back of the oven as needed.

Take chicken out when nicely golden and meat thermometer reads 155*, as it will reach 165* while it is resting. I usually check in the breast and thigh.

Moist, juicy and flavorful! Mmmm!

I tried to capture how it looks after cooking it this way, but the pictures don't do it justice ;-)

I added flour and water to the drippings, and made gravy for the rest of the week. There was enough salt and pepper in the drippings that I didn't need to add any spices. After picking over the chicken, there is plenty for Darlin to take sandwiches to work in the woods all week and some for a few meals besides. :)

I am really enjoying trying out different dishes in the cookstove. This is the first time I roasted a chicken with it. I must say though, I think I know a couple reasons why Caroline Ingalls baked one day a week: You have to tend the fire every so often, and check the food frequently. And you have to have a HOT fire going to heat the oven, which really heats up the kitchen! I can't imagine what it would be like in the Summer!
   I do wish the stove top didn't always look icky when I snap pics while cooking. But as the surface gets hot, it burns off the nice, shiny coat of shortening I put on it, and then there are the unavoidable grease splatters! So after it cools to a gentle warm temp in the evenings, I grease it again like I do with my fry pans before I put them away (only I grease those with olive oil, shortening in my food or pans creeps me out, yuck!) Yup, I'm an odd one ;-)