Our small beachside community had a barbecue cook-off on July 6, and the residents came up with a lot of original ideas that actually tasted good, and were a lot of fun.
Here are a bunch of 1,000 word substitutes, most self-explanatory –
Ha, looks like so much fun! I too am very curious about the chicken in the watermelon. Is it a convenient and fun vessel for cooking, or was there any imparting of flavor on the chicken? Or did it also keep the chicken moist? I can see the high water content to be a good or bad thing for chicken skin in particular.
What was the thing that looks like a giant meat log in the shape of a flower? [Picture 3] I’m sorry if that is a bad description; it was not meant to be derogatory.
The sliced sausage was smoked bologna – and pretty good, although I prefer a thick cut. IT has sweet (to me) spicy (to others) outside. I think he scored it before he ran it through the slicer – thus the floral (?) disguise.
First you hollow out the watermelon and use if for the things for which you use watermelon. Then you season the chicken with such seasonings as you like – a. lot of them, apparently, and stick the whole thing in a smoker for I don’t have any idea how long or at what temperature. It comes out moist, but I - a hater of dry breast meat, would put it in upside down. That isn’t really necessary, but I’ go all out to maximize. It did have a somewhat smoky flavor. There wasn’t a watermelon flavor. Ther was sweetness, but that may have been from the rub. With all that moisture, I’d want a good bit of salt and some hot stuff, but that’s me
You were there, I wasn’t, but the watermelon in your photo looks suspiciously pristine. I would have expected the bird cooked in such a sarcophagus would wind up looking poached, not roasted.
The bird wasn’t roasted. The top was on the watermelon as it was cooked. That photo was taken before cooking was finished. The melon was more beat up when he took it off, but still holding up
“consider the madness of roasting a hen inside a hollowed-out watermelon with soy sauce and a lemon. This profligate recipe, unattributed but definitely emanating from Hawaii,”
