Chicken a la Rocket

[Hitman]

My latest gizmo is the "Chicken Rocket", which I read about elsewhere on this Forum, thought I'd give it a try. It's really straightforward, made out of cast iron, weighs about 3 pounds, will convey heat much better than a flimsy beer can. The center will hold about a cup of liquid.

I had one of those veggie baskets, wrapped it in foil to use as a combo base and drip pan. That worked really well. I rubbed the 7-pound oven roaster with garlic olive oil, then put a spoonful of rub into the cavity, and some more rub on the outside. This was right before it went into the KK, next time I'll give the rub more dwell time. I put about a up of liquid in the center, half beer and half cider vinegar.

Here's the bird, ready for cooking.

Cooked at 330 degrees for 2 hours, last 20 minutes or so I bumped the heat up to 425 or so to crisp up the skin. Took it off when the breast temp was 170, inner thigh about 175, then tented it under foil for 10 minutes.

The bird was perfectly cooked. Both wings fell off with a little finger pressure, and the leg quarters came off easily, but didn't fall apart. The dark meat was very moist, looked almost like it wasn't cooked enough, but pulled right off the bone. The breast meat was very moist and flavorful. The skin was very crisp, almost completely fat free.

Probably typical results for a KK, but the cooking time seemed pretty quick for such a large bird. Next time I'll try a little smaller bird, maybe at a higher temp as well.

[mguerra]

done?

I also noticed that a chicken cooked to 175 thigh on the KK doesn't quite "seem done". My guess is the KK retains so much moisture in the bird, it seems that way. I'm pretty confident the chicken was safe, but I might just cook mine a little more in future, if only for a slightly less rubbery texture.