House Capuchin 3

Making a feast dish of the recipe – Birka, Filled spit-roasted chicken from An Early Meal by Serra & Tunberg ©2013 ISBN 978-91-981056-0-5 pg.150

This worked great, except that there wasn’t enough of the green filling. I think we need to double the amounts of green, at least, and double the basting liquid. The filling got very solid and had to be scraped loose of the foil. It only made about 2 cups. It’ll be about 10 servings per steam pan with the doubled/tripled stuffing. ….and we might try it with some cooked barley added next time, or with cooked barley on the side. For the feast, this would be served with several sauces, at least the berry mix, probably a mustard, and then a mushroom sauce with pieces.

Make stuffing (this will have to double/triple per pan)

• 1/2 pound bacon
• 2 cup leeks, spring onions, carrot tops, dandelion leaf, bittercress, beet tops, oregano, turnip tops and blooms and other greens (measure after chopping)
• 1 cup baby spinach (measure after chopping)
• 2 hard-boiled egg
• 1 TBSP ground mustard seed
• 1 cups whey
• Foil steam pan with cover (we had to improvise with foil and a baking dish)

1. Fry bacon, drain.
2. Boil egg, peel, cool.
3. Choppity, choppity….. crumble bacon, crush mustard seed, spinach can be larger pieces, everything else gets chopped fine, then measured. Make sure you have enough! (Anything left over, and hard bits like stems, goes into soup.)
4. Mix thoroughly.
5. Add whey and mix again.
6. Put into foil pan.

• 5 pounds chicken thighs (total of 10 thighs)
• horseradish powder
• garlic powder
• caraway seed

7. Lay on top of the stuffing, skin down. Add spices. Cover and bake at 350F for 15 minutes per pound, basting with the following every 1/2 hour.

• salt
• Mustard seeds, crushed
• enough water, whey or broth to make 1 cup

8. Pour at least 1/2 cup of basting liquid over the top of the chicken for the 1st baste, Before the 3rd baste (and each time thereafter) suck up the pan juices and add them to the basting liquid. (This was not possible with the lower level of stuffing!)
9. Check internal temperature. If below 150F, baste and return to oven for 15 minutes. Repeat as necessary.
10. When it reaches 150F internal temp, flip meat to skin up.
12. Uncover and finish baking at 350 and baste as before. It should average a total of 20 minutes per pound. Ours took exactly 2 hours. 

We didn’t do the final coating due to lack of “stuff” to do it with, but we’re thinking to make it into a sauce, instead….

Our test run….

Birka, Filled spit-roasted chicken from An Early Meal by Serra & Tunberg ©2013 ISBN 978-91-981056-0-5 pg.150

Make stuffing

• 1/2 pound bacon
• 2 cup leeks, spring onions, carrot tops, dandelion leaf and other greens (measure after chopping)
• 1 cup baby spinach (measure after chopping)
• 1 hard-boiled egg
• 1 chicken liver
• 1/2 tsp each ground rosemary and thyme
• 1 TBSP mustard seed
• 1 cups whey

1. Fry bacon, drain.
2. Boil egg.
3. Boil chicken liver.
4. Choppity, choppity….. crumble bacon, crush mustard seed, spinach can be larger pieces, everything else gets chopped fine, then measured. Make sure you have enough! (Anything left over, and hard bits like stems, goes into soup.)
5. Mix thoroughly.
6. Add whey and mix again. Set aside. 

• 1 chicken (about 6 pounds)

6. Clean and prep chicken. 
7. Stuff. 
8. Put into pan, breast down. 

• salt
• Mustard seeds, crushed
• enough water, whey or broth to make 1 cup

9. Mix up basting liquid.
10. Pour at least 1/2 cup of basting liquid over the top of the chicken, cover and bake at 350F for 10 minutes per pound, basting every 15 minutes. Before the 3rd baste (and each time thereafter) such up the pan juices and add them to the basting liquid. 
11. Check internal temperature. If it is below 150F, baste and return to oven for 15 minutes. Repeat as necessary.
11. When it reaches 150F internal temp, flip it to breast up.
12. Cover and finish baking at 350 and baste as before. It should average a total of 20 minutes per pound. Ours took exactly 2 hours. 

• 1 egg yolk
• Crushed mustard seed
• Pinch salt
• 1 squirt of pan juices

13. Mix the final coating
14. Brush it onto the whole bird, as far around the sides as you can reach, making sure that it covers as much as possible. Pour the rest over the top. 
15. Return the bird to the over for 15 minutes.
16. Allow to cook for at least 15 minutes before carving.

Original Recipe from Birka, Filled spit-roasted chicken from An Early Meal by Serra & Tunberg ©2013 ISBN 978-91-981056-0-5 pg.150

Ingredients

• 1 chicken
• 1 handful of ramsons or other leek
• 5 juniper berries
• 100g smoked fatty pork
• 1 boiled egg
• 1 chicken liver
• 1 chicken heart
• 2dl whey
• 1 egg yolk
• Mustard seeds, crushed

Method

1. Finely chop liver and heart.
2. Cut the smoke pork into pea-sized pieces.
3. Make a mixture of the offal, leek, juniper berries, the smoked pork and a boiled egg.
4. Add some whey (or malt-vinegar) if you’d prefer some acidity to the dish.
5. Fill the chicken with the mixture, make sure to stuff some under the skin as well.
6. Sew the bird shut with linen or hemp thread.
7. Put the chicken onto a spit; the legs should be tied to the spit and you might want to fix the chicken using some wooden skewers.
8. Prop up the spit with the chicken next to the fire, with a fire-proof bowl underneath to collect the fat. If you are using an oven it should be set to about175C.
9. In another bowl, mix some crushed mustard seeds and whey. This will be used with the drippings from the chicken to baste it while roasting.
10. Save a cupful of the mixture and mix with an egg yolk.
11. Turn the bird properly so that it gets evenly heated on all sides.
12. As the chicken is placed next to the heat-source it needs to be roast for approximately 2 hours depending on size.
13. When the chicken is almost done, baste it with the saved whey/mustard seed/egg yolk mixture.

Page created and published 9/16/21 (C)M. Bartlett (Some parts otherwise copyright)
Last updated 3/26/22