My next KCBS barbecue competition is coming up this weekend, and the past few weeks have been filled with numerous ribs and chicken tests. It's hard to think of many things better than barbecue testing: You deal with zero stress, you have all the comforts of home, the backyard smells of delicious smoke and meat, and you simply concoct, adjust, fiddle, rearrange, and otherwise tweak until you can tweak no more. It's akin to my old days of being a graphic designer, but so much better because it involves fire, smoke, and meat!

Mmmmm Riiiibbbbbbbss:

After trying a few local farms out, I've settled on using The Meathook in Williamsburg as my ribs supplier for this competition. I have to find out which pig farm my last round of slabs came from, but regardless they were outstanding. Balanced fat levels, nice uniform st louis cut (good job Sara the butcher!), and a wonderfully rich meaty flavor. I've recently switched to wild cherry wood for smoking ribs, and I'm loving the taste. Super mellow yet distinct. A really nice combination with the richness of spare ribs. I'm still on the fence about going with my favorite vinegar-heavy sauce or using my latest sweet/tomato sauce. I'm guessing the judges will like the sweeter one better... so thinking it's worth a shot.

Test That Chicken:

I've spent a lot of time on chicken variations. Too much time really. I've brined. I've braised in butter. I've removed skin, scraped all the fat off then stuck it back on. I've deboned. I've rubbed under skin and on skin. I've used cherry wood. I've used apple wood. I've used oak. What have I learned? A shitload, most notably that barbecued chicken rocks. But here's my final takeaway: I plan to trim uniformly, remove skins, brine, scrape fat from skins, keep meat on the bone, season under skin, wrap skin back on, season on top of skin, pierce a few holes in skin, indirect grill on the kettle with drip pans and cherry wood, crisp skin-side down at the very end, and sauce off the grill. Woohoo! 

This was our first ever turn-in at a KCBS barbecue competition! For the chicken category we opted for wings, which we knew was a risk but thought we'd try our luck by giving the judges a break from the monotony of chicken thighs. It totally didn't pay off! We came in 34th out of 40 competitors in chicken. Bert painstakingly split 2 dozen wings on saturday night, we then rubbed them with my BBQB rub base (no sugar) and let them sit in the cooler overnight. We then grill-smoked just the wing sections on the weber kettle for about 30 minutes, tossed them in a classic buffalo wing style sauce (with Frank's hot sauce of course), and arranged in two columns in a relatively clean looking turn-in box. They were crispy and tasty, but clearly not what the judges were looking for. Next comp I'll definitely try the chicken thighs I entered into the Battle of the Boros BBQ in NYC. I think they have a much better shot of scoring higher. 

Sadly I did not place in the NY Daily News / Fairway BBQ of the Boros, but it was the first time I've ever grilled on a grate the size of my couch, in a parking lot with a highway above me and a river 100 yards away. My wife was kind enough to come to this event and shot a bunch of pictures of me grilling at the event and being interviewed in front of the judges. A full recap of the event is below.

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This is the classic, american, saucy, smokey, juicy, and crispy BBQ'd chicken you're looking for. Think Norman Rockwell drawing a summer picnic BBQ and this dish is front and center.

When I cut up Kinderhook Farm's Freedom Ranger Chicken into pieces last week I was really excited to make this meal with the legs, thighs, and wings. You want the juicy richness of dark meat for this one, and that chicken did not disappoint. I started with a rub inspired by one of Chris Schlesinger's mixes... it contained:

• 1/4 cup Paprika
• 2 TB Brown Sugar
• 2 TB Cumin
• 2 TB Mustard Powder
• 1 TB Ginger Powder
• 1/4 cup fresh ground black pepper (use a coffee grinder!)
• 2 TB Kosher or Sea Salt

I coated the rub all over the chicken pieces and put it for a few hours in the fridge to let it set. I used roughly a third of the rub made above... its awesome to have leftover rub! I then got a charcoal fire going, and banked all the coals to one side as I planned to cook the chicken with indirect heat on the other side. I put a tin of beer over the hot coals to keep things moist, and the chicken as far away from the heat as possible. Here's the layout: 

I then covered the grill, and let it go for about 20 minutes. When I came back the coals were practically extinguished. That really shouldn't have happened, but I was slow getting the chicken on, and I just didn't have enough fuel going. So I added some more coals, abandoned the beer tin (which had been consumed - by the heat, not me) and propped up the edge of the lid with a piece of wood to keep the air flow strong:

Well, as most people know wood catches fire. Something I was not really planning on but like many things on the grill was a really happy accident. When i came back 10 minutes later to check on things, smoke was pouring out the Weber from every which way. I thought the chicken would be a black brick, but it turned out the wood didn't go up in a blaze, it was a sort of smoldering smokey log. So I ran with it, and kept it on top of the grate as an extra smoke maker:

This slow cooked for about another 25 minutes (we're at 55 now total)... And then it was time to mop on some of that sweet sticky sauce. The sauce was made with: 

• 1 cup Heinz Chili Sauce (you could use ketchup, but i love chili sauce)
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 10 dashes of worcestershire sauce
• 1 TB chile powder (chipotle chili powder if you can find it)
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1/2 a beer 
• All of that was cooked over low heat for about 30 minutes to help thicken it up. 

I mopped it on the chicken pieces, and let it cook on there for about 5 minutes. Any more and it would start to burn... I just want it to set well and not be a runny mess. Right before i took it off the grill this is what we looked like: 

And under the lights inside here's what came off the grill after a total of about 60 minutes:
This was really outstanding. The meat was incredibly tender and moist... it was downright juicy! And the skin was this sort of crispy flavor burst. This rub and sauce combination is one of my absolute favorites. I'm normally a guy who loves heat, and this has essentially none. But it is so so so good. Just an explosion of smokey flavors that go really well together. The legs and thighs were great, but i was also surprised by how juicy the wings stayed as well.  Here's a quick shot of the table setting:

We served the main event with a quick mixed green salad, some canned baked beans, and some of Lori's Jalepeno cornbread muffins we had in the freezer. Another great meal from that Kinderhook Chicken. Last thing to do is make up a stock with the final pieces awaiting in the freezer. I love being economical! Especially when it produces such awesome meals. 

We got a call from Lee at Kinderhook Farm last week with news of Freedom Ranger Chickens which had just been harvested. So we made a quick Sunday afternoon trip over to the farm... had a lovely meandering tour of sheep, chickens, horses, and vegetable gardens in progress... though the main event was to pick up a fresh chicken. These came in from processing on that Friday (it was Sunday), and were simply kept in the fridge having not been frozen. They were all about 4.5 pounds. 

Fresh chicken in hand, I was now left with the dilema of what to do with a whole chicken? I had just done a beer can chicken, and wasn't in the mood for another... and it is June so its kinda hard for BBQ Billy to NOT use the grill. So, to open up my preparation options i decided to butcher the chicken into parts (a task i have never done). Turns out its not that hard: you cut them exactly like'd you'd guess. My only tip would be to start with the legs, then do the wings, then split the breasts. I kept the breasts for dinner, and froze the legs and wings for another meal. I also froze the remaining "scrap" to make a stock sometime this summer. Here's a few shots of the butchering results:

My plan for dinner that night was a simple grilled breast on the bone with a lemon/parsley vinaigrette. I first learned of this dish from the book "Let The Flames Begin" about three years ago, and its become a summer staple in our house. I do it from memory now so its likely a bit different but its incredibly vibrant, and a perfect hot summer night meal. The trick is to brine the chicken, as a breast is tough to grill without drying out. So I soaked these split breasts in a quart of water with a 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup salt dissolved in it for about 4 hrs... if you go too long I've noticed the breasts become too salty, so 5 or 6 hours should be ok, but 8 is not. Exciting pic of chicken brining can be seen here: 

Other ingredients are few and far between:

• 1/3 cup chopped parsley
• 3 tablespoons minced garlic
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup Olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

I combined the parsley, lemon, olive oil, and a tablespoon of garlic in a bowl to make a vinaigrette. I like to do this early so the garlic has time to soak into the liquids. 

I then coat the breasts with a tablespoon of garlic each, and a healthy portion of ground fresh black pepper and sea salt.  In addition to the brine, I've started to put a pan or tin of water on the grill when i cook things that might dry out. I figure it works in my smoker when i make ribs and pork shoulder, so its likely to work on the regular grill. Here's a shot of the breasts on the grill with a pan of steaming water:
As always the grill was preheated, scraped clean, and oiled before cooking. I then grilled the breasts over a medium heat "fire" (this was on a gas grill in Brooklyn) on the hotter side of the grill for 4 minutes per side (skin side down first), and then moved them to the cooler part of the grill for another 10 minutes. So total cooking time was about 18 minutes.

[A quick note about grill temps: i learned from that same book about judging heat by feel... so for medium i wanted to be able to hold my hand over the hottest part of the grill right along the grates for 5 seconds before i had too pull away. When i want them hot for a seared steak that time is more like 2 seconds. In the recipe, the cooler part of the grill was more like 10 seconds... or i might not really ever have had to pull away at that temp.] 

The skin gets crisp as evident by the following picture, though it wasn't nearly as burnt looking or tasting as it looks:

After I took these off the grill I let them sit for a couple minutes and then tossed them around the dish of vinaigrette:

I also spoon a bit of the liquid from the vinaigrette on the plated breast. We served these with a boxed vegetable cous cous mix, and some simply grilled yellow squash slices:

Lighting at the dinner table was soft, so this pic is a little yellow but I wanted to show the sense of moistness this chicken had:

I was really happy with this dish. The chicken has a wonderfully "full" flavor. I'd describe it as being exactly what you'd wish chicken always tasted like. Its maybe a touch on the darker side than supermarket breast, but just slightly. Whenever possible I'll opt for this chicken over supermarket chicken from now on... it really was that good. 

 

 

 

Pigasso Farms was at the Hudson Farmer's market last weekend, and in addition to asking Rob to bring a pork shoulder for some memorial day weekend smoking (can't wait), I picked up a whole chicken, roughly 4 1/4 pounds. Cooking laziness got the better of us that weekend, so we brought it back to Brooklyn not knowing how we'd prepare it. It was a 90 degree scorcher in town on wednesday, and i had grilling on the mind. So out came Steven Raichlen's book on beer-can chicken and the festivities began. 

I actually didn't use anything from Steven's recipes... but did consult on timing and approach. I used a dead simple rub of olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic, and sat the bird on a half-full can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Grilled on the gas weber with indirect heat for about 1 hr and 40 minutes (should have talken it off closer to 1 hr 20 minutes), and prepared a simple vinaigrette with a lemon, a tablespoon of cilantro, and a clove of minced garlic. Chopped up the chicken (i love the method of removing the breast entirely from the bird, and then slicing into steak-like strips), and then i drizzled the vinaigrette over everything, and served alongside Lori's balsamic greens with avocado, carrot, and shaved parmesan. 

Results were decent, or maybe better than decent. Flavor on the chicken and vinaigrette were perfect. dark meat was very moist, white meat was bordering on dry but you couldn't call it dry. I should have stopped cooking 20 minutes earlier, but aside from that it was top-notch. Super easy too... i'll make it again for sure. The Pigcasso chicken was good.... though i didn't notice anything totally amazing here. 18 bucks for a whole chicken is not cheap, but there is always that piece of mind that they are decent to their animals. Which honestly can go a long way in this cook's opinion.