Glowing and ready to put the chicken on.

Well, it's the first major firing up for the new Braai and it lights so easily just gooi (throw) the charcoal on add a couple of natural fire lighters (please don't moan to me that I should be building a proper fire with paper and wood) this is definitely the way forward then just light. Gee man, in 15 mins this thing was ready to cook! With only a small amount of coals it burnt for over 3hrs until I closed off the air vents and saved what was not burnt for the next time. Ja, you don't have to throw the old bit away, just add a bit more coal the next time you want to braai and light it again.

All ready to go chicken, Hunters and a Beerbird

So first things first, I'm planning on using a BeerBird to cook the chicken on and to make things simple this time I'm using one of the best known SA spices that we sell "Robertson's Portuguese Seasoning" . Beerbirds are a fantastic way of roasting a chicken on the braai or in your oven, you will see from the image that I have placed a can of Hunters Gold Cider in the middle of the BB. This does two things, first it gives the chicken a great flavour (you can place whatever drink you fancy, usually I use Castle Lager) and secondly once the liquid heats up it acts as an internal steamer, making sure that the chicken is cooks evenly though out and remains moist.

Crack open the can and place it in the BB, rub as much spice at you like onto the outside skin of the chicken. Making sure that you open up the areas between the legs and wings of the bird so that you cover it evenly. Then just pick up the chicken and stuff it legs first over the beer or cider can. Its so simple, all that's left is to put it into the braai or in the oven.

Place you chicken in the centre of the braai, you should make sure that the coals are not directly below the chicken as you might end up burning it, if your fire is to hot. The beauty about this BigGreenEGG braai is that you can control the heat exactly like an oven, I set the heat to 200C and cooked for 90 mins. You can do exactly the same in your oven if you are not cooking on the braai. If you're not sure about when a chicken is ready you can buy poultry thermometers, you just place these in the breast of the bird and it will indicate when its cooked (i'm all for making life easy).

All that's left to do is wash your potatoes (great to mix sweet and normal) some onions, leave the skins on and put them in the braai at the same time as the chicken. These take about the same time as the chicken to cook from raw (the sweet popatos will have that caramelised sweetness) and will have that great lekker charcoal flavour when you eat them. Next cut up a selection of veg, I used carrots, broccoli and sweet peppers. For seasoning all i added was a little salt, pepper and a sprinkling of paprika. Then just pour a small amount of olive oil over them and give them a good toss so that all the spices stick to the veg. For cooking all you need to do it put the carrots on 10 mins before you think the chicken is ready and 5 mins later the rest of the veg. It doesn't take long to cook then so keep an eye on it as you really don't want slap (limp) veg. Take a look below to see the final result, please feel free to let mw know what you think about this and any other posts.