Rock Oven - Bushcraft cooking a Roast chicken lunch.mp4

Right, I think it's probably time to have a little look and see what's going on in here. I'm just a bit afraid of a collapse. Hope you've had a good Christmas and New Year. It's the first time I've got out since before Christmas. The last couple of videos were filmed prior, so I could get them out over the Christmas period. I've just come to this spot today. Quite like the layout and I've got a log to sit on here. And I'm going to build a little fire pit and the idea is to build a rock oven on top of it to bake inside of. A bit of a proof of concept let's say. So I'm going to give that a go. Firstly you have to get some firewood and dig a bit of a hole. It's possibly a little hard to see here but I've made a bit of a keyhole fire pit which is here and this is the little bit for letting air in, drawing air through the back. So I just have to arrange the rocks now which way I can make it into an oven. It's not exactly what I envisaged but it's not bad. A nice flat one there and a few flat ones on top. This ground is muddy. It is so wet. It was meant to be a dry one today but non-stop rain has we've had the last two months now I think it is. So yeah I'll get this fire going and hope that these haven't got too wet that they're going to splinter. For the purposes of today I'm just going to use some of this tinder card. You've probably seen me use it before and I'm not using natural materials. I think it's impregnated with something but you can just pull it apart and kind of like birch bark really and you can rough it up with a knife and it'll take a spark from a ferro rod. First stage kindling. It's quite a small pit this and a small oven so hopefully that doesn't work against us too much. This is the actual small hole that I had dug out the back for the keyhole fire to draw air. I suppose you could call it a bit of a decoater as well to a degree. I think I'm going to dig it out a little bit more because it's so wet and everything's smoky as you can see. So I may just dig that out a little bit more to help feed the fire with air. While with clean hands I'm going to make up a bit of a marinade for the chicken that I've brought with me. Just christening a new knife here. Chopped up nice. Some garlic. Garlic, chilli, lime. One of the best combinations. Maybe add in some coriander as well. Which I haven't got with me today. Garlic, a bit of lime. Okay so I've got my Pusan chicken. Just a young chicken basically. And I think I'm going to spatchcock it because I think I've got room in there to do that. And I've put a little oil in this dressing here. So yeah I think I'm going to spatchcock it. Get that off. Throw it on the fire. Excess skin here. All right that's spatchcocked. Push down on the breast bones a bit just to flatten it out. And we're just going to use this chilli and garlic, lime and oil dressing. Try and get some up in the skin as well there. And on the other side and the inside. When I'm doing something like this I always have antibacterial wipes with me. For obvious reasons when handling poultry. Okay so that is pretty much ready to go on the fire. Which I think is probably up to temperature. Now this is quite a hot fire now especially since I opened up that gap at the back. So hopefully we're not too hot. We've got flames coming up the back which is what I wanted. Surround it with heat. So we're going to get our chicken and stick it on this shelf. Which as you can hear is quite hot. Now that's going I think I'll treat myself to a cup of tea. Wind's picking up but the rain's died down for the moment. It is hot in the oven but it's just not enclosed enough I don't think. So I'm going to move this around. See if it yeah it's definitely hotter at the back as you can see there. Should have squashed down the legs a bit more. Let's see if it collapses. All right we're okay. See if that helps. Maybe put some coals on the top as well. Well I thought being winter I'll make up some fat balls. Some suet, some bird seed and some raisins as well. And I've got these orange peels to use as moulds. For a while I'm up here as it is winter give the birds something to eat. Here's that melted suet which I'll just add to this. Knew this chicken would take a little while so I thought I'd bring something to get on with. Here we go. Oh I forgot to put the string in first. I guess any leftover bits I can spread on the ground for the ground dwellers. I could have made whole balls. Possibly still could. Give it a go with one of them. There we go. And this I'll just spread out on the ground. All right I think it's probably time to have a little look see what's going on in here. I'm just a bit afraid of a collapse because I've rested these on top of this one now. Oh it's actually looking quite good. I'm going to keep that going a little while longer. All right well the fat balls come out all right. Someone's going to enjoy these. Probably end up being the squirrels but let's hope some birds get some. So just hang it up. Using this piece of slate on the front of the oven has worked a treat I think. So carefully take that off. It looks like we're pretty much done. It does look good. I'm not gonna lie. It is beautiful. I'm gonna take some of this breast meat and it's gonna go in a wrap. A bit of salsa. I just remembered I had some asparagus tips. So I'm just gonna stick them on now because they should take long anyway. While they're doing, I'll get on with this. Try out the old wrap. It's good. And I can have the asparagus with the legs. I knew I'd forget about the asparagus. I brought it out and forgot about it before when I've done steak. Very nearly there. Just had a little collapse on the oven but it doesn't matter I got the asparagus off in time. Picked up the juices from the chicken. Thought I'd put some in a wrap first. Oh that asparagus is as perfect as the chicken. Juicy, still has a bit of bite, a bit of snap to it. Lovely. Drumsticks. Beautiful. Put some of that dark meat in there as well. That's where the fire was. A bit of a dip there because I lost some of the mud because just everywhere is mud so it's hard to tell. Won't even be able to know that's there in a week. Well thank you guys for watching. It's been enjoyable this one. Good experiment as well. Got some ideas for the next oven because I do want to do this again. It's going to be more in the ground, in the earth. I'll find a nice bank to make it into with the rocks and that should retain the heat really well. Maybe bake some bread or something in it. But yeah that's it for now. Thanks again and I'll see you soon. Goodbye.