The last time I was at Fetta Sau up in Williamsburg Bklyn, I picked up this stylish mason jar of their rub. They use ground coffee amongst more traditional rub seasonings, and I've always loved the flavor on their smoked boneless beef ribs. The jar has been sitting in my cupboard for a couple months, but last night I remembered it was there and used it on a thick rib eye steak I picked up for dinner.

Read the rest of this post »

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. 

Inspired by some korean-ish hot wings seen at more please ( http://moreplease.posterous.com/sriracha-wings-0 ), I decided to redeem my grilling mojo after all but detroying some drumsticks earlier this month.

I happened across a sixer of PBR at the corner bodega (score!), and knew I had half a bottle of some stubbs in the fridge. This equals an old standby mop that is one of my favorites:

Thats 1 can of beer to about a 1/2 of stubbs. So i use that mop throughout grilling the wings for about 30-35 minutes on a pretty mellow/low heat. I turned the wings 3 or 4 times, moving them around the grate to give the right heat to the various wing sizes.

Meanwhile I'm making the finishing buffalo type hot sauce. Here's what I use:

Rougly 2/3rds cup franks (gotta be franks) hot sauce, 1/3rd cup red wine vinegar, a heavy tablespoon of butter, and a 3 second heavy squirt of ketchup. Here it is in the pot... If you stick your nose in there for a whiff you'll start coughing immediately. It's good stuff:

Back to the grill. It was super dark outside tonight so I didn't snap any pictures while grilling, but here's what the wings (bell and evans, btw) looked like after those 30-35 minutes on the grill, moped 3-4 times. These things were awesomly crisp:

They were so crisp, I didn't want to overdo it on the sauce coating for fear of creating a soggy mess. So I tossed a moderate amount (maybe 1/3rd or at most 1/2 of the pot) of that buffalo hot sauce. Here's what it looked like after all tossed up:

These were really really great. Crispy, hot, moist and tender meat inside. I got my grilling mojo back, and I'm officially ready for BBQ season.

I made some baby back ribs last weekend that I also totally scorched (see drumsticks rub post earlier this week) but were pretty tasty the next day. Heated em up with some stubs as a glaze... Mmmm, mmmmm, mmm.

The rub was really basic. Cumin, corriander, salt, pepper.

This is kinda whack, but I love the way a rub looks on meat. It's full of anticipation.

Look at that awesomeness!

The ribs are on the left center there. These things were the biggest babyback ribs I've ever seen. Lori was not a fan. I blame bittman for that.

This rub was really great tasted straight up, and it had zero sugar so i figured i didn't need to pay much attention to it on the grill. I was completely wrong. Its February and this winter I haven't grilled much, so apparently i've just forgotten how to do it. I didn't look at these drumsticks until 15 minutes later and they were totally scorched. Amzingly the meat inside is really tender and moist, but the skin is a burnt-chemically mess! I made extra rub though, so i'll redeem myself soon!