OK...you're standing in front of your grocery store meat case looking for some chicken for dinner...boneless chicken breast...split breasts with the bone in...a nice roaster...forget it! Go for the thighs and legs...cheap and...secret be told...the best of the bunch! I am particularly fond of the thigh and use it in all sorts of incarnations. Tonight was a 'low and slow' night...the gift of time combined with charcoal to deliver some fall off the bone chicken. This meal started about 48 hours ago when a big package of legs and thighs found their way into a tub with a generous soaking of State Fair Speedie Sauce...never heard of it?...time you did! A truly fantastic marinade made right in our home town of Syracuse. Here's a link:
http://www.citymade.com/MadeInSyracuse/prodinfo.asp?number=SFSB-86007 . Now...you need to have at least an hour or more to do this properly. I prepared a good pile of charcoal in my grill and after laying the fire, I set the chicken high above the coals. My grill has is a grill and smoker so I have good control over the damper and thus the temp. This is key...like the man says...Low and Slow. I shoot for about 225'-275' and I keep track of this with an after market thermometer I installed in my grill. If you don't have this technology, you need to keep the meat away from the heat such that nothing is charring in any way. The lovely browning of the meat is a long term process. As with so much of good
cooking...there is no right or wrong...just a developing instinct for what is happening. After an hour to an hour and a half the meat will be very tender to the touch and falling off the bone. I keep moving the pieces around while turning them trying to keep the cooking as even as possible. This is when the dark meat of the thighs and legs are at there best. While you can cook breast meat this way, the dark meat stays much moister and I think is far superior for this type of preparation. Tonight I paired this grill-fair with fresh broccoli steamed over some locally made Kimchi and a simple baked potato. As Bobby Flay says...'Boy meats Grill'
OK...you're standing in front of your grocery store meat case looking for some chicken for dinner...boneless chicken breast...split breasts with the bone in...a nice roaster...forget it! Go for the thighs and legs...cheap and...secret be told...the best of the bunch! I am particularly fond of the thigh and use it in all sorts of incarnations. Tonight was a 'low and slow' night...the gift of time combined with charcoal to deliver some fall off the bone chicken. This meal started about 48 hours ago when a big package of legs and thighs found their way into a tub with a generous soaking of State Fair Speedie Sauce...never heard of it?...time you did! A truly fantastic marinade made right in our home town of Syracuse. Here's a link: http://www.citymade.com/MadeInSyracuse/prodinfo.asp?number=SFSB-86007 . Now...you need to have at least an hour or more to do this properly. I prepared a good pile of charcoal in my grill and after laying the fire, I set the chicken high above the coals. My grill has is a grill and smoker so I have good control over the damper and thus the temp. This is key...like the man says...Low and Slow. I shoot for about 225'-275' and I keep track of this with an after market thermometer I installed in my grill. If you don't have this technology, you need to keep the meat away from the heat such that nothing is charring in any way. The lovely browning of the meat is a long term process. As with so much of good 
Posts
Ah Chris, you're on the right track. May I suggest that you can also utilize an indirect heat. That is, only use a fire on one side of the grill while placing the food on the other side. This way you don't have a flare up concern nor do you worry about turning quite as often. Of course, you do not need to keep opening the cover to see what you are doing, either. This works great when slow cooking is what you are trying to achieve.
ReplyDeleteScott