Main Ingredients:

See below ingredients and instructions of the recipe

Cooking Preparation of the Recipe:

2 Whole chickens -- 4 lb or
Larger *
2 Lemon -- quartered
2 md Onion -- quartered
4 Sprigs fresh rosemary
4 Cloves garlic -- halved
Black pepper
Vegetable oil
Tabasco sauce

Probably the most abused food on any barbeque pit is the poor old
chicken. I don't know how many times good manners have been
challenged by being served a blackened fowl that is still raw in the
middle. There is no escape, so you pick around the edges, then beat a
hasty retreat, hopefully, unobserved. Generally, there are two
mistakes that lead to this travesty. First, the bird is cooked over a
fire that is much too hot. If you remember that frying chicken takes
about 45 minutes, and that the oil is ideally at 360 to 375 degrees
F., then you begin to see that barbecuing, a less efficient cooking
method, should take longer. And longer has to mean at a lower
temperature level, or you wind up with the well-known charcoal
effect. Secondly, many people feel that the clucker just has to be
basted, and so they buy a bottle of comercial tomato-based sauce.
Here comes the second layer of charring!! Just for grins, try out my
method and see if the results aren't just a little more pleasing.

Rinse the chickens thoroughly inside and out, discarding the neck and
giblets. Stuff each chicken with one lemon, one onion, 2 sprigs of
rosemary, and two cloves of garlic. Sprinkle each bird with black
pepper. Place the birds in a covered barbecue pit, away from the
direct heat and close the pit. Hold the temperature in the pit at
about 250 degrees F. for 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours.

Baste the birds occasionally with the cooking oil that has been
seasoned to your liking with the Tabasco Sauce. When the chickens are
a nice rich brown color, and the drumstick wiggles freely, they're
done.

*Whole chickens hold their juices better and come out much more moist.
Larger birds have more fat and are better candidates for this method
of cooking. If you're doing halved cluckers, then baste more
frequently, and watch the cooking time. It should be about an hour
less.

Recipe By : Chile Pepper Magazine - Sep/Oct 1990

From: Date: 05/27

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