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!