So I got a Chick Brick for my Christmas and I AM LOVING IT. any recipes?

[Aitch]

today i made a kinda ratatouille by flinging some onion quarters, a pepper, some carrot and aubergine, then plonked some chicken pieces rubbed with harissa on top and put it in the oven for an hour and a half. the results were delicious and there was no cooking required whatsoever, just chop and plonk and into a cold oven set for high.

any other recipes? i think i am a convert.

complete lightbulb moment - of course its about steam isn't it? doh. I lost the instructions to mine but I think it said just soak once, but like you say, it must be better to do it each time. Thanks. I must use it more..

the instructions, apart from the soaking, are, no detergent when cleaning, just give it a scrub. (my mum's one is black with lovely juices from the last twenty years).

and rub a clove of garlic around the inside every time, it says, to build up a layer, then into a cold oven set to 250degrees, so mega-hot basically. for a 3lb bird or whatever, that should take an hour and a half. although that romertopf has different timings for things.

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wow ! i need one of these !! how fantastic, we eat chicken at least once a week..... fab!

totally, cod, it was the one item everyone could afford form habitat when it opened, so they sold millions and millions of them.

my mum also had a rotisserie oven.

the only thing is, though, lulu, if you've got a big family i'm not sure how big a chicken they'd hold plus veg. there were 6 of us and my mum had to retire hers until we started leaving home.

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oh i well remember the excitement when the rotisserie went on... it was better than telly. [nostalgia]

bugger i forgot to watch that show last night, cod, was your pal's boy good?

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oh excellent. that will make it much less awkward when you next bump into his mother. although i find most people involved in the acting profession respond well to a diversionary 'have you lost weight?!'

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i think i have dvd somewhere, must look it out.

I've had a chicken brick for over 20 years (one fo the Habitat ones) and my parents have had one for even longer.

It's brilliant - just bung in a chicken (I rub both the isnide of the brick and the chicke with some cut garlic cloves and put a load of garlic cloves inside the chichen and a few unpeeled ones underneath it which go lovely and squidgy in the juices, rub it with some olive oil and season) and bung it in a cold oven set on high for and hour and a half, leave it to rest for 15 minutes and voila - a beautiful, moist , crispy skinned chicken with lovely chicken jus for no effort.

I never both soaking it although ti has developed a great paitna of its own over the years. I only ever wash it with hot water, with maybes ome salt for scouring if it needs it.

It's appareltnyl good for roasting other meats - but one it is bad for. I can never remember if it is pork or almb, but I#ve never tried anyway.

cheers, prettybird. so you don't soak it...

I've got the Romertopf one and I lurve it. I must get it out again, as we eat loads of roast chicken. As everyone says, it just comes out intensely chickeny. We put new potatoes round the edge as well as garlic, which makes sort of roasted new potatoes.

I do have a couple of recipe books (including a really old 1970's one), but tbh everything else looks a bit of a fag. Part of the attraction is that you just use a chicken, garlic and possibly a splash of wine and you are away - recipe books all seem to do mad things with tins of Campbell's condensed soup, iirc.

I thought the soaking was a key part? Or is that the Romertopf conspiracy?

it would seem to make sense, given the porous nature of the material. which romertopf have you got? did you see the website linked to below?

Nope.

I can fit in a 4kg chicken - it's only really supposed to take up to 3lb (so really only good for a family of max 5). Not sure how big the revivial ones are - they are slightly different: mine is two halves of roughly equal sizes, whereas the new ones seem to have a much smaller top "half".

SOmetimes I shove a halved lemon inside the chickenavity too.

Don't really know - it seems to steam/cook/roast beautifully anyway without soaking. As I say though, mine is now well "cired"

DH and I had a small Romertopf. Now with 2 DCs we cook much larger chickens so we also have a large romertopf (yes, swankily, we are a 2 chicken brick family)

Warning: do not bother trying to do fish in it. The fish tastes of nothing. Which is bizarre, as for several subsequent goes the chicken tastes very much of fish

lol, i saw a fish recipe online and was suitably suspicious of it.

I am heading into David Jones (Aussie John Lewis) this very morning to find one. DP will be all-of-a-quiver at the prospect of chicken. I love a good roast chicken. We do sooo much with a whole roast chicken.

I am so excited .

I bet my Pot Roast Chicken recipe would do well in a chick brick.

oh lordy oh lord, bran, i bet it would be LOVELY.

Woohoo! She shoots, she scores!

I'm buying a chicken on the way home from work.

Aitch. I owe you one for this. I haven't been this excited about a chicken for ages.