Early Bird

You wouldn't know it now as the weather took a quick turn to the autumn yesterday, but here in NOCA, as my Navy brother calls it, we were having summery weather although it's nearly Hallowe'en. I'm not complaining, mind you - I was enjoying the warmth and sunshine!

On the other hand, roast chicken seems like something I'd rather not do when the afternoon temperature hovers around 85 or even 90 with scant breeze - too hot for the oven. So, I decided to plank a whole chicken early in the morning before the heat built and serve it cold for dinner.

After washing the bird, I stuffed it with a halved lemon, trussed it so it wouldn't hang out over the plank and positioned it on my widest untreated cedar shingle with the dark meat toward the thin end of the plank so it would get more heat than the white meat. I put in lots of charcoal, as the bird needs to cook for almost an hour at about 300 degrees (our Weber grill has a built-in thermometer). When the coals were well started, I dropped the plank onto the grill and closed the cover.

Look how beautifully it turned out! It was moist with perfectly done dark and white meat, a deeply smoky flavor right down to the bone and a just a sneak of lemon curling through the smoke. This early bird is a great solution to hot weather meals.