Roast Capon

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Happy Holidays to everyone,

We are keeping our oven very busy this holiday season, with dinner
guests and visitors. It had barely had time to cool off, and has been
performing wonderfully.

Here is a new chicken/capon recipe that we found in an Italian
cookbook. The capon is the bird of choice for Christmas here (it's a
male castrated chicken, ouch), and ours was about 6-7 pounds. The
capon is a little fattier than chicken, and has a great flavor. It is
big enough for a small dinner party. I boiled the heat, feet and
insides to make stock for risotto.

There are a couple of nice aspects to the recipe. First, it uses the
heat of the oven and dome to brown and seal the bird, and it uses
dessert wine and tomatoes to make a very rich and flavorful
sauce/gravy. You turn the bird a number of times when the oven is
still hot, then cover it with foil for the 90 minute roasting period.
Our visitors said it was the best meal they've had on their trip.

Ingredients
6-7 pound capon
1 carrot, diced
1 onion, diced
1 glove of garlic, smashed and minced
1 glove of garlic, slivered (optional)
5 TBL olive oil
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup vin Santo (I think any dessert wine will do)
1 can of peeled, chopped tomatoes

Preparation
Place the carrot, onion, smashed garlic and 3 TBL olive oil to a
metal cooking pan capable of holding a couple cups of liquid. Cut 6-8
slits in the bird meat and set the slivered garlic in the cuts. Place
the bird in the pan, and coat it with the last 2 TBL of olive oil.

Cooking
Fire your oven until the carbon burns off (650F+), then shovel out
all the coals and let it rest for a few minutes. Make sure you have
driven enough heat into the oven to roast for about 2 hours. You want
a hot oven, which is capable of browning your bird from the dome
heat, but not so hot that you burn everything in the first few
minutes.

Place the pan in the hot oven, and when the top of the bird starts to
brown, turn the bird a quarter turn. Keep browning and turning the
bird until it is a nice medium brown. Cover the bird with two layers
of aluminum foil, taking care to cover the tips of the wings and the
legs.

Add the stock, vin Santo and tomatoes. The liquids will cook into a
great sauce, and the tomatoes will disappear.

Cook for 90 minutes, or until the bird is done.

Strain the sauce to remove the carrot and onion pieces, and skim off
the excess oil and fat. You can either use the sauce as is, or as the
base for a thickened gravy.

Enjoy!

James