Here's a grilled chicken that comes out quite good.
Tasty and moist.
Wander into the packaged mix stuff for general cooking.
It's usually near the spice dept. in most markets.
Lawry's and McCormick are the two largest suppliers here.
Another is - if I remember right - Sunbird, comes in a mostly yellow envelope.
McCormick has a packaged meat loaf mix that is very good.
Buy yourself an assortment of marinades and whatever other mixes appeal to you.
When you figure the cost of spices, you're saving a little $$ here.
You can save a few bucks on spices in the Mexican section of the market.
The spices are in plastic bags, but quality is excellent.
This works well in the little Weber Smoky Joe grille.
A scaled down version of the big Weber we all know and love, it works well for cooking for up to 4 people.
What I like about it is you can have an overly hot fire and if it flares up, close the upper vents (bottom vents are wide open) and let the meat cook
in the heat and hot smoke.
After about five minutes open the vents about half way and make sure it doesn't flare up into flames again.
Last time we did this, we marinated six thighs in Sunbird's teriyaki marinade mix overnight.
Use half the mix for marinade and the remaining half for basting.
Time before this, I used a Mesquite marinade, McCormicks I think.
I stretched it a touch with the juice of one lime.
Get yourself some of the Weber tinfoil small oval - or round if you prefer - pans.
Light a full charcoal lighter can of charcoal.
When ready, toss it into the little Smoky Joe, push the coals to the outer edges and put the tinfoil pan into the middle.
About a half inch of water and the liquid from the marinade bag.
Since this will go to a boil, no salmonella probs from that.
Arrange the chicken in a circle with about half of each thigh hanging over the pan.
Other cuts can be arranged as you wish.
There's more room with the little BBQ's than you think and what's nice about them is their temperature control, air flow/draft devices.
A Hibachi would work as well, but I like starting with a hot fire and controlling the draft as necessary.
You will need something to tap the vent valve open or closed.
I use a home-made fireplace/BBQ tool I made many years ago.
A big BBQ spatula works as well.
What's happening here is the chicken is being grilled in a moist and smoky hot environment.
The moisture adds a lot to the juicy tenderness of the chicken.
Turn it fairly often, turn it over and switch ends a couple of times so the thighs are overhanging the boiling liquid.
When both sides are golden brown, cut a piece with knife in a thick area and make sure it's done all the way through.
Wrap in tinfoil if you need a few more minutes for cooking the bread and corn on the cob.
We usually cook more chicken than we need and the next day it gets sliced up for one of Sweeties wok wonders.
Along these same lines, you can cook a whole beer can chicken in one of the Orion cookers after you've done the main dish.
For us, we cook baby back ribs in the Orion and after the recommended time, pull the ribs and put the chicken in for its recommended time.
It cooks while dinner is going on and next day you have a fully cooked chicken for whatever.
Chicken salad in summer works well.
The Orions use quite a bit of charcoal so you may as well get all the cooking out of one load that you can.
Do a search for Orion Cooker on the web and you'll see how they work.
Basics are, you load the cooking area, place the flavor chips inside, fill the ring with charcoal and light it off.
The time starts when you light the charcoal.
Reason for cooking the chicken after the ribs or other main course are done is to make use of the fully hot unit that still has a lot of charcoal left
to burn away.
More on that if you wish.
I almost hate to admit it, but I own five BBQs and am thinking about another....
(Edited for clarification) - (twice in fact)
[edit on 27-9-2008 by Desert Dawg]
[edit on 27-9-2008 by Desert Dawg]
