Poulet En Cocotte, Sur Le Barbecue

I usually prepare my casserole-roasted chicken by first browning the flavored, trussed whole bird in a skillet, then sealing and slowly roasting it inside of one of my old French earthenware pots from Vallauris. Unfortunately my batterie de cuisine is packed away in a distant storage unit, and I'm adrift— homeless and unemployed— this summer.

In exchange for a week-or-so use of a couch, I'm doing the cooking at my temporary digs and, as there are no earthenware cocottes here, and the weather is fine, I've modified my usual technique to make use of a barbecue grill. The grill is makeshift; It's a broken propane-fueled grill which, through the removal of valves, hoses and regulators, and the addition of a bent sheet of steel, I've converted to charcoal use. The rôle of the earthenware poelon has been filled by a lovely old Griswold cast-iron kettle. The chicken is filled with flavorings, trussed, and then browned on the grid, right above the hot coals. The bird then goes into the kettle, along with a scatter of aromatic vegetables, and cooks for about 50 minutes.

The flavor of the cooked bird is different than the skillet/earthenware pan version: it's smoky, more savory, more assertive, and the juices from roasting and deglazing the kettle are dark brown instead of a light ochre color. If you've a grill, a casserole and a chicken, give it a try!

Recipe after the jump:

Palladian's Poulet En Cocotte, Sur Le Barbecue

Equipment/Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken, preferably a "roasting" chicken, about 4-5 pounds
• A lidded cast-iron casserole or kettle, large enough to hold your chicken. I used an old, well-seasoned Griswold pot, as I mentioned above, but a Le Creuset enameled casserole of the right size would also work beautifully.
• Rendered chicken, duck or goose fat, or lard, or olive oil, for the pot.

Internal Chicken Flavoring:

• 1/2 lemon, cut into several pieces
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dried thyme)
• a few celery leaves
• 5 sprigs parsley (or 2 tbsp dried parsley)
• 1 shallot, minced (or 2 scallions, minced)
• 2 (or more) cloves garlic, unpeeled and slightly crushed
• 2 tablespoons butter
• salt & black pepper
• 1 Turkish bay leaf (Try to find bay leaves labelled "Turkish" or "Imported". These are the true bay leaves, Laurus nobilis, used to crown Apollo and ancient Olympic athletes, and possessing the best flavor. The American "bay leaf" comes from a different species, Umbellularia californica, and have a different, harsher, flavor. If your bay leaves don't specify, use only 1/2 a leaf)

External Chicken Flavoring:

• about 3 tablespoons softened butter
• 1 or 2 tablespoons Colman's Dry Mustard (or any ground, dry mustard)
• salt & black pepper

Aromatics:

• 1 small onion, roughly chopped
• 1 medium carrot, roughly chopped
• 1 Turkish bay leaf
• a sprig or two fresh of thyme (or a tsp dried thyme)

For The Sauce:

• about 1 cup chicken stock (homemade or store-bought)
• 1 cup dry white wine, or a dry French vermouth (Noilly Prat or Dolin)

Remove giblet package. Remove the fat pads at the cavity opening. Dry your chicken with paper towels, inside and out. Remove the tip of the wing at the first joint with a good knife or poultry shears. Remove the wishbone. Salt & pepper the cavity. Stuff all of the "Internal Chicken Flavoring" into the bird's cavity. Truss the chicken. Mix the "External Chicken Flavoring" ingredients together, and rub this mixture all over the outside of the trussed chicken. Salt & pepper the exterior of the chicken.

Heat your barbecue grill. Brown the chicken on the grid of your grill: begin on the chicken's back, then flip it onto its side, then flip it onto the breasts, then flip it onto its other side, (then, if necessary, stand it up and brown it on the neck end, and then on the vent end). When handling the chicken, do your best not to rip the skin. Browning should take about 10-15 minutes, total. Set the browned chicken aside.

Place your cast iron casserole or kettle on the barbecue's grid, about an inch above the coals (or gas jets), and heat in it the rendered fat (or olive oil). When the fat is hot, add the Aromatics and cook them for several minutes, stirring all the time. Place your browned chicken in the casserole/kettle, on top of the Aromatics, and cover the casserole/kettle tightly. Close the lid of your barbecue grill (if applicable), and let the chicken cook for about 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until the internal temperature of the thickest part of the thigh is 165º F. Check the casserole/kettle several times during cooking; it should be making fairly quiet cooking sounds, not a fast sizzling. If it's sizzling too fast, move it to a different, cooler part of the grid.

When the chicken is cooked, remove it to a hot platter. The chicken should "rest" for 10-15 minutes before carving.

Sauce

In the mean-time, heat the chicken stock, and the wine/vermouth, to the simmer in a small saucepan.

Pour the cooking liquid from the casserole/kettle, through a fine-mesh strainer, into a fat separator or bowl, making sure to press any liquid out of the cooked Aromatics. Put the casserole/kettle on a stovetop (or back on the grill) and get it hot. Add the hot chicken stock/wine mixture to the hot casserole/kettle and use a wooden spatula, scraper or spoon to thoroughly deglaze the casserole/kettle. Pour the resulting liquid into the fat separator/bowl, along with the chicken cooking liquid, and then pour off the fat, using the fat separator, or remove as much fat as you can from the top of this liquid using a spoon

Serve the chicken with this natural jus, or mix the hot jus with a cooked roux, to make a thickened sauce velouté.