Chicken breast you say?

Generally I am opposed to just plain old chicken breasts. They don't really have a lot of flavor, the boneless/skinless variety usually dry out too quick, and most of the time I feel like my charcoal is better used elsewhere.

But, as some of you know I am trying to eat a little healthier these days and both the doctor and the weight watchers folks say that means I have to diversify my protein selection. I tried to explain that pork is very diverse you have pork chops, bacon, pork loin, pork butt, tenderloin, sausage... But alas I did not prevail and as a result I have been looking for more lean protein in my diet.

Which means, CHICKEN BREASTS. Boneless. Skinless. Chicken breasts.

As with most things done on the grill, planning is always your friend. I have found that a decent rub for chicken can do wonderful things. I rarely measure, but below is a rough approximation of a decent chicken rub/seasoning I have used lately.

- 3T oregano (dried, don't use fresh for this)
- 2T each cumin, kosher salt, chilli powder
-1T each garlic powder, onion powder, coriander
- 1/2 T black pepper
- cayenne pepper to taste ( I use about 1-2 tsp, but I like things hot)

Before applying the seasoning, process the chicken breasts by trimming any excess fat or tendons. After trimming the chicken you need to "filet" the breast. Hold the "smooth" side of the breast on the fingers of your right hand using your thumb to apply pressure to the "rough" side. Using your other thumb break the tendons that hold the rough side of the breast together. After you are done, you might have some parts of the breast that are very thick, it could be beneficial (but not necessary) to flatten these a bit with a mallet (don't crazy and turn it into a cutlet...)

The purpose of all that processing is to ultimately deliver a flavorful, delicious, moist piece of chicken. The hardest part about chicken is cooking it throughly without drying it out. By filleting the breast and flattening the thick parts we increase the ratio of surface area to mass. Increasing the surface area improves cooking times and gives us more area to season, leading to a higher deliciousness quotient.

Pat the breasts dry and then apply a light coat of oil. (I just use a canola oil cooking spray). Season the meat evenly on all side. The recipe above should season at least 2-3 lbs of chicken.
Allow the chicken to sit for at least an hour, preferably overnight.



Cook the chicken on a hot grill for about 5 minutes on one side, then flip, cooking about 3 min more. If your grill is hot and chicken completely thawed this should be enough time.

Allow the chicken to rest before serving. By the way, I find it useful to cook extra chicken on the weekends and then we use for lunches/meals in the week. Today I am cooking 8 pounds to use in soup, enchiladas, chicken salads, and a sandwich or two. (If your applications are more Mexican in nature use extra chilli, cayenne, cumin, and coriander)

Pick up the Spare

Growing up, I thought ribs were the height of culinary achievement. Of course, when I thought that I also didn't know what culinary meant or very much about food. I also believed the hype from all the crappy chain restaurants that their baby back ribs were the best. It is pretty easy to fall under their spell. I mean what could be bad about uber tender pork ribs slathered in a sugary sauce?

Somewhere along the way I ate good ribs and discovered that properly prepared spare ribs could be amazing. What was happening here that wasn't happening in the chains? Why did their ribs suddenly lack so much flavor that good BBQ had?

Mostly, it's cooking method. To make those ribs fall off the bone they boil them, pressure cook them and do all kinds of crazy stuff. Of course then all the flavor is floating in a stock pot and you are left with grey, flavorless meat that needs thick sauce to be edible.Come with me as we free ourselves from the tragedy of mega-chain ribs and discover the joy of properly prepared spareribs. Yes, it will take time. Yes, it will require effort. Everything good does.

We start with a full, uncut rack of spare ribs. A full

rack of spareribs is a pretty big chunk of meat and you have a decision to make. Some places like to cook the ribs as they are as a whole rack. This results in large but messy ribs. Others, myself included, prefer the St

. Louis cut treatment. The St. Louis cut basically involves dividing the main rib bones from what is known as the brisket. The brisket contains a seemingly random collection of bones, cartilage, fat and meat. The brisket is not, by any means, bad meat it is simply more complicated. The additional fat and bone actually makes for some incredible flavor.

Whether you divide and conquer or cook the slab whole, you need to first flip the slab over where you will notice a strip of meat running diagonally across the rack. Using your favorite knife, slice this off close to the bones.

You will also notice that there is a membrane covering the bottom side of the ribs. This membrane is great at keeping the pig's innards away from the meat but unfortunately it also keeps smoke and flavor out, too.

Getting rid of it is pretty difficult. You are going to have to treat it like a particularly difficult sticker that won't come off. Find a corner, pull slowly until it bre

aks and start again. There are a lot of tips out there and I struggle to make any of them work. You will be rewarded for your efforts in removing this membrane.

To make the St. Louis cut, you need to find where the main bones meet the smaller ones. One way to do this is to find where the rack will flex. Use your knife blade to feel out the joint and cut through it. Carefully work your way through the rack until you have two beautiful slabs of ribs. (If you are really uncomfortable, a good butcher would no doubt cut this for you.) Trim off any loose or excessive fat and dangling bits of meat.

Now that you have done the slicing and trimming it's time to season. I always start by rubbing everything down with a little yellow mustard. Then I break out some dry rub. Whatever dry rub you like will be fine. Where Adam likes to make his own rubs, I am lazy and buy my rubs premixed. Laugh all you want but they are actually very good. Wrap your ribs in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge overnight. You didn't want to eat ribs right away did you? Remember, good things take time.

About five to six hours before you plan on eating it will be time to st

ward the firebox or coals and close the lid.art cooking. Get whatever vessel you bbq in hot and stabilized at 225 degrees. It is very important with ribs not to get overheated as the thinner cut of meat will cook quickly in high heat. Take your ribs out of their plastic wrapping and arrange them on the top ra

ck (if you have one) as far away from the fire as they can get. Lay the thicker end of each slab to

While the smoke is making beautiful music with your ribs you need to think about mopping. No, not your kitchen. You need to mop your ribs. All that dry heat can suck the life out of ribs and ruin your day. Most mop recipes call for three basic ingredients: vinegar, something slightly sweet, and something really savory. Mops are a great way to add subtle and complimentary flavors to your BBQ as well as keeping it moist. As I am usually unprepared, I made a mop out of what I had in the pantry. I always keep apple cider vinegar around so that was the base. I had a can of pineapple so I added the juice. (Pineapple rings are a good snack for a hungry cook, too.) Then I happened to have some soy sauce around so I added a dash of that. Some freshly ground black pepper for spice and a touch of olive oil for no good reason at all. Some cooks say absolutely no sugar and they are wrong about that. You need to keep the sugar content very low but a little sugar will do lovely things in the low, slow heat of the pit.

So how long is it going to take these ribs to cook and should I use aluminum foil to speed it up and tenderize?

The answer to all of these questions is: It depends. It depends on what you want. There is a common method that goes around on BBQ websites called the 3-2-1 method. 3 hours on the smoke, 2 hours in the foil and one more hour out of the foil to finish up. Its catchy and easy to remember but it is also not a good recipe. Two hours is entirely too long to be in the aluminum foil and six hours may well too long to cook the ribs. Mine are usually at their peak at 5 hours. (Results will vary, of course.) If you foil your ribs for two hours they will get completely steamed and definitely fall off the bone. In fact, you won't be able to get them off the grill without them falling apart. I cook my ribs for 3-4 hours on the smoke, then no more than 30 minutes in foil and finishing off with another hour on the smoke.

Finishing sauce is another question. Some cooks like to baste their favorite barbecue sauce on the ribs during the last hour to caramelize sugars. I have no problem with this but you should definitely try it without. When you get to the point that you are making ribs and don't want sauce, you have achieved the Tao of smoke. Knowing when the ribs are done is kind of a touchy-feely process for me. Once you know its close to time, gently tug on a bone or peel up a stray bit of flesh and see how tender they are. If they offer a little resistance but come free pretty easily, you are there.

To serve, take a good sharp knife and cut through evenly between the bones. With the brisket section, just cut through it in inch wide sections. This will be a struggle if your knife isn't sharp but why isn't your knife sharp? If you aren't serving immediately, wrap the ribs back up in aluminum foil and keep them warm. My oven has a warming drawer and an hour in there did the ribs no harm.

So go ahead and get cooking, my friend. Barbecued spare ribs fresh from the grill is an awe-inspiring feast. Be fore-warned that will suddenly have numerous new friends and your current friends will want to come over more. Your local TG Apple-McTuesday restaurant will seem bland and fake while even your local barbecue joint might seem wanting. You however, will be the Zen-master of the barbecue.

BBQ Chicken and a Birthday Party!

In the mood for BBQ Chicken?

Chloe, our oldest daughter, will turn 2 this week.  This weekend we threw her a birthday party and invited a few friends to come and celebrate.  The winter this year has been the snowiest in recent history, preventing me from grilling as much I would like.  Well, Chloe's birthday party happened to coincide with the warmest weather we have seen since November, allowing a nice time to break out the charcoal and get down to business.  We were not really sure how many people would be able to come and I wanted to grill something that would be tasty, but that wouldn't be so expensive that I would be disappointed if there were tons of leftovers.  As I was pondering these things, a stroll through Kroger led me to a few large packages of chicken legs.  So I bought them.

Many people complain that grilled chicken is dry and often bland.  And often, they are correct.  In our quest for slimmer waistlines and faster cooking we have resorted to cooking primarily boneless, skinless chicken breasts;  the cut of chicken most likely to be dry and bland.  Not all chicken has to be this way. Go ahead, leave the skin on. And that bone? Don't remove it.  It makes for good eating.

A few tips for grilling chicken:

• The best way to guarantee a juicy final product is to the leave the skin on.  As the fat renders out of the skin it will baste the meat, keeping it moist and protected from the heat.
• The fat that renders out is a good thing that can have bad consequences.  Make sure to cook the chicken indirectly for most or all of the cook, separating the rendered fat from open flames when possible (you will see my method in a moment).
• Season the chicken before putting it in the Grill/Smoker and sauce after the chicken is nearly finished cooking.  This late saucing will help prevent "over caramelization" (i.e. burning).
• Your sauce should be a little thinner than ketchup, but not watery.  A little honey, corn syrup, sugar, etc will help it to caramelize into tasty goodness.
• Finally, DON'T FIDDLE WITH IT TOO MUCH.  Constantly moving and turning the chicken will slow the cooking process (because you opened the lid. "If you're lookin' you ain't cookin'!!).  And will also leave you with a final product that is a little dry.

Dry Rub Time

My dry rub is a pretty simple affair:

• 2T Kosher Salt
• 1T Chili Powder
• 1T Granulated Garlic
• 1/2T Black Pepper
• 1T Cumin

I mixed the above in a bowl and then put it all into a McCormick spice container for easy application.  The mix above made a good bit.  I was able season 45 chicken legs and only use half of it.  Although, I should say that I would have used more seasoning and I would have added a 1/2T cayenne or ancho powder if I had not planned to sauce the chicken.  

The chicken legs were seasoned and then covered with plastic wrap and put in the fridge.  You could season ahead as far as 4-6 hours, but anything beyond that you run the risk of pulling too much moisture out of the chicken.

Let's Make a Sauce



Roasted...



For my chicken legs I decided to a make a sauce that is half BBQ sauce and half wing sauce.  I wanted something that had a good "body" to it (not runny) but that would have a spicy kick like my favorite Thai Chili sauce, Sriracha. For this sauce you will need the following:

• 2 whole bunches of garlic
• 1/2 stick butter
• 1 onion, diced finely
• 1-1.5 cups of ketchup (I prefer Heinz)
• 2/3 cup red wine vinegar
• 1T Honey

  

  Peeled...

• 2.5T Sriracha hot sauce
• Salt
• 2 cups of water

Minced!

Roast the garlic, still with the outer "shell" around the individual cloves.  While this is roasting, melt the butter in  a sauce pan and add the finely diced onion.  Caramelize the onions slowly while the garlic is roasting.  When the garlic is done (it will be soft to the touch), remove the outer "shell" from the clove and place the clove on the cutting board.  Do this with all of the garlic cloves.  Mince/mash the roasted garlic until it is a kind of chunky paste (we are going to puree this in a little bit, so the chopping doesn't have to be perfect).  Add the garlic to the sauce pan along with the 2 cups of water and bring to boil.  Simmer/boil for 30 min, stirring occasionally.  

Pour the garlic & onion combination into a blender.  Add the ketchup, vinegar, honey and hot sauce.  Puree thoroughly.  You should have a homogeneous, smooth final product.  At this point, put the sauce back into the pan and bring up the temperature, careful not to burn.  Salt to taste, I added no less than 1 tsp, but it could have been more.  Soy sauce would also be a nice addition, accentuating an Asian feel.  If you would like to try the soy sauce route, replace half of the red wine vinegar with soy.  For even more Asian flavor you could substitute the rest of the vinegar with rice vinegar and maybe throw some freshly grated ginger in there as well.

Final Product

Grill Time

I used an offset smoker to essentially turn my grill into a smoky oven.  If you don't have an offset smoker you can accomplish the same thing using pretty much any indirect heat method.  My goal was a smoked product, so I started my temp out low (about 250) and slowly ramped to 340 by the end of the cook.

When you are laying your chicken on the grates it is important to give enough room between each piece of meat for heat and smoke to circulate.  If you do NOT leave room, the chicken will not cook evenly and you will be more likely to end up with hot and/or cold spots in your cooking.  

I cooked the chicken for about 1.5 hours. The saucing began at the 45 minute mark.  I applied sauce at 45 minutes and then again at  1 hour and 15 minutes.  If you keep your grill at an even 350 for the entire cook your chicken could be done in 40-45 minutes.  But be warned, this faster cooking will not produce a crispy skin and the meat will not soak up as much smoky goodness.



The pan you see will catch the rendered fat from above.
There is another pan below the grates, on the right.



This is 30 minutes in.  At this point I started rotating the chicken between warmer
and cooler areas to promote even cooking



How do I know when it is done?

For most things I grill this is not a hard question.  If you serve beef a little rare few people that I know will be unhappy.  And whenever I cook pork chops or anything of the sort there is never a chance for them to be underdone.  Not so for chicken.  You under cook the chicken and it is a problem for everyone.   

When cooking chicken breasts you can tell by feel.  When cooking a whole chicken, whole breasts, or whole thighs the probe thermometer can do the trick.  But for chicken legs (drumsticks not quarters) the only way to tell is to pierce the chicken and check the color of the juices.  The goal is clear (not completely clear, it will be a tad murky) juices.  If you get any even hint of pink whatsoever, they need to cook longer.  The skin and bone will prevent them from drying out.  But either way, dry chicken is better any day than salmonella poisoning.

45 chicken legs, ready to eat



Cake for the birthday girl!



BBQ on the Road: Columbia, SC

I have finally gotten around to posting on this blog. You've been staring at Adam's smoke-tinged handiwork for a while now but I have had nothing to offer. I too practice the judicious application of hardwood smoke to meat when I can. One of my favorite things to do when traveling this vast land is sampling the local styles and flavors of BBQ.

My family and I are big University of Kentucky Wildcat fans and we travel to other SEC schools to watch basketball and football games. The great thing about the SEC is that it is also barbecue county. Every town in the southeast has good barbecue joints (although Lexington only has a couple) and they are all a window into the local culture.

That is just about enough philosophical blustering about BBQ and travel. Let's move on.

In South Carolina, they do BBQ a little bit different. Oh sure, everyplace has a different sauce but South Carolina is really unique. First of all you have the sauce. Everybody uses tomatoes, vinegar, and stuff like that but South Carolina uses mustard as a base for BBQ sauce. For some this is a polarizing thing because people seem to love or hate mustard. The typical mustard sauce has a nice sweet taste balanced with the tang of the mustard and the seasonings. Of course, there are the usual hot, smokey and other variations as well. The sauce also gives everything a bright yellow hue that is kind of fun, too.

The sauce is just the beginning. Probably the most unique thing is the favorite side dish for South Carolina BBQ known as hash. Now when you and I hear the word hash we probably start thinking about a breakfast of corned beef, potatoes, eggs, etc. In South Carolina, they will be thinking about a pork-based gravy served over white rice. Remember that BBQ has its origins as food for poor people and poor people use every last bit of what they have. So instead of just using the cheap cuts of meat, the fine folks of South Carolina make use of the organs and such. I don't really know how they make it but what I can gather is they cook up some meat and organs until it is super tender, chop it up really fine and make a sauce out of it. It isn't so great to look at but it really has a great, rich flavor that goes well with barbecue. Aside from the mustard sauce and the hash, you will almost certainly be served hush puppies along with the usual slaw, green beans, etc.

On a recent trip to see UK play USC in Columbia, (Kentucky won, Go cats.) we stopped in at our usual place in Columbia: Maurice's Piggy Park BBQ. Maurice's is pretty well known in South Carolina and Maurice is pretty infamous. He ran for governor in the 70's and is well known for his defense of the confederate flag. The restaurant has been around for a long, long time and was once a classic drive in. The car hops and mics are gone but the canopies remain for parking.

I was searching Urbanspoon to maybe try a new joint in Columbia and I was struck by what I found out. Scanning the menus at many of these smokehouses revealed they actually served very little BBQ. Some served only pulled pork or maybe chicken and were focused on hot wings and other bar food. All that stuff is well and good but when I want BBQ, I want to go to a place that is all about the Q. There were some places that appealed to this urge but they were too out of the way.

Here is a run down of what's good at

Maurice's:

Pulled Pork: The pulled pork here is nice. The style seems to be to add a little sauce before serving which OK with me. They don't douse it and that bright yellow color just pops. The pork had a great smokey flavor, was tender and moist.

Ribs: I'm a sparerib guy through and through. I always eat a couple of Maurice's ribs and they are good but they aren't great. They are always "fall off the bone" which means they are overcooked. They add too much sauce before serving and it really overpowers the meat in this case. Baste it on when cooking and let me worry about the rest.

Beef?: There was some sort of mystery beef in gravy concoction on the buffet that I didn't really want to taste.

Hash: The hash is great. It is a rich dish that I could honestly make a meal of. I am guessing that folks probably did just that in days gone by.

Sides: I was very impressed with the homemade mac & cheese, and green beans. The hush puppies are perfectly fried, slightly sweet and almost as good as mine!

Proof they use it all: Homemade Pork Rinds. Never let it be said South Carolinians are wasteful. There was a big pile of golden fried pork rinds unadulterated by powdered seasonings that were crunchy, puffy and delicious.

Other Notes: This last trip I tried the buffet just because I hadn't before. I wasn't unhappy but it wasn't really a good value. I usually get the dinner plate with pulled pork and 2 bones of ribs. This is plenty of food and basically what I ate off the bar. If you want to sample a lot of stuff the buffet is OK but quality always suffers on the steam bar.

Do yourself a favor and get an order of those pork rinds, the Big Pig dinner plate and a sweet tea. (Warning: Tea is super sweet so you might want to dilute a little unsweet in it.)

Before you leave, be sure to check out some of the southern heritage literature and grab a bottle of sauce to go. Be warned, however, that too much hash and mustard barbecue sauce might cause you to look like this guy: