As promised last week. Here is this past weekend's cook with the Roadside Chicken recipe, on a WSM, without a water pan.

My Roadside Chicken

What did you use for the final glaze? Looks good....

It was a simple mixture of BBQ sauce and honey. Probably about a 3to1 ratio. The BBQ sauce is a peach sauce found in Fine Cooking magazine a several years ago.

I'll be trying this on a gas grill. Will this recipe work if I use boneless parts? This health kick is ruining everything.

I haven't tried it with boneless chicken but it should be fine -- last time I made it I cut the chicken into 10 pieces so some of those pieces were pretty darned close to boneless

Dumb question though -- boneless chicken isn't any healthier than bone-in chicken, is it ? Thought it was just easier to slice up on a salad.

perhaps it is because boneless chicken is usually skinless.

Yeah, that makes sense. Seems like this recipe would be ideal for BSTs (boneless, skinless, tasteless). Definitely worth a try.

EDIT -- actually, between all the great ideas here and the forced retirement of my gas grill maybe we can stop calling them BSTs

Jimbo is exactly right. They are skinless.

Kinda takes the fun out of eating BBQ chicken, when there isn't a pile of bones to show how much you ate.

Just made this for a fourth time and may be starting to get the hang of it.

First off, I worry about using too much marinade because I haven't really figured out a good way to get rid of the unsafe leftover marinade -- my understanding is that if I dump too much oily stuff down my septic system I can get a layer of oil across the top and kill off the ... um... anaerobic bacteria... which don't need oxygen ... so what's the deal... ???

Anyways, first time I made two batches of sauce, used one for marinade and one for basting / mopping. Very tasty but about 90 minutes to cook, with coals half-drowned by the sauce. Second time I made a single batch, held some back for basting, and rearranged the chicken in the marinade to make up for the reduced amount. Basted with a brush -- worked ok but maybe a bit light on the flavour.

Third time I had lots of coals and put a pot of sauce on the grill so I could dunk the pieces in hot sauce. Worked better, cook times maybe 45 minutes, but a few of the pieces ended up undercooked. I didn't pay attention to which ones, unfortunately.

This time I made a single batch of sauce (again) but poured it into a leftover plastic "spring water" bottle rather than into a big bowl. Chicken marinated in a freezer bag with perhaps 1/4 batch of sauce. That was about right -- I had about 2 tbsp left over in the bag after an hour or so in the fridge. The chicken was cut up in 10 parts again -- legs, thighs, wings including a bit of breast meat, breast cut into quarters -- since that seems to produce nicely grillable pieces.

For cooking, I started with a pot on the stove and dunking but after a while noticed that the sauce in the pot wasn't very hot so started to wonder about cross-contaminating with chicken bugs from earlier dunks. Poured the remnants of the pot over the chicken and switched to dribbling sauce onto the chicken from the water bottle. I also stayed close to the kettle (22-1/2"), took the lid off completely, and kept the chicken moving and flipping over the coals.

Folks, this is the way to do it. Total cooking time was just over 30 minutes and the chicken was perfectly cooked and VERY tasty. The legs were not quite cooked through, so next time I'll either start the legs 5-10 minutes before the rest or try this with half chickens and see if that equalizes the cooking times between the various body parts.

For the miser or septic tank worrier, I used 1/4 batch for the marinade and 1/4 batch for dunking and dribbling, so I have at least 1/2 batch left over in the bottle for next time.

Cross-thread note -- the 14 oz cylinder in my Performer finally ran out. I figure I got a dozen or more lightings plus some tinkering, averaging 5-10 minutes per light. YMMV, of course. EDIT - for clarity, "cross thread" means this section is applicable to another topic which I was unable to find, not that I cross-threaded the propane cylinder

This message has been edited. Last edited by: John Bridgman,

John, why don't you dump your left over marinade in a plastic zip lock bag. Seal it and toss in the trash.

I would tend to think that any soap from the shower or handwashing at the sinks would break up the oil layer. JC

For cooking, I started with a pot on the stove and dunking but after a while noticed that the sauce in the pot wasn't very hot so started to wonder about cross-contaminating with chicken bugs from earlier dunks. Poured the remnants of the pot over the chicken and switched to dribbling sauce onto the chicken from the water bottle.


I know this isn't probably the prevailing opinion, but assuming your temperature is sufficiently high in the meat and at the surface of the meat, I can't imagine a few premature "dips" would cause the finished product to become tainted.

Now, if you're dumping raw chicken pieces into the pot and not heating it, and then pouring that over your chicken and pulling it right off the grill, I'd be bothered.

But if you're dunking them and cooking them for several minutes at high heat, I can't imagine any nasties being able to survive. If the entire solution you put on the chicken is heated to 160F or greater for any duration, how can someone argue otherwise?

Here's a question for you, do you use the same tongs throughout the cook, and if so, aren't you worried about contamination from early flipping onto the final product, or do you clean your tongs towards the end?

imho.

My 2 Cents . . .

I prepare the marinade, mix well and fill a 10 oz Worcestershire bottle with approx. 6 oz marinade, I then fill a gallon size ziplock bag with skinless thighs and legs or breasts and pour the remaining marinade, marinade overnight.

I setup my Performer or OTG for indirect cooking with drip pan and Weber char baskets, chimney 50 K-briquettes and dump into baskets, lay chicken down the center over the drip pan. I reseal the gallon ziplock bag and throw in the garbage can.

I hit the chicken with the marinade in the Worcestershire bottle (shake well) every five minutes and turn every ten minutes. Depending on what type of pieces I'm cooking it takes between 40 - 50 minutes to done. Oh, I use the lid too with bottom vents 100% open.

Perfect each and every time, tons of flavor and very addictive.

Last item, I do change my tongs after one complete turn of the chicken. Bad experience with chicken years ago . . . don't want to go back there again

Ciao,

quote:

John, why don't you dump your left over marinade in a plastic zip lock bag. Seal it and toss in the trash.

Good idea. I guess I never trusted liquids in plastic bags since that garbage bag of water blew up in my friend's parents living room just before we threw it off his 14th floor balcony. Before anyone points out how irresponsible and dangerous this is, yes I agree. I think we were 11 and clearly should not have been left unsupervised.

Also good question about contamination via tongs. When I have guests I'm more picky about washing the tongs mid-cook -- when I'm on my own I just get sick more often

re: whether a few minutes on the grill after last dunk would kill the bugs -- probably, but I'm not a good judge of time and temperature and didn't want to rely on that approach unless I knew more about what I was doing. It's also pretty easy to lose track of the dunking vs. the grilling, at least for me

Larry, I'll try cooking it indirect next time and see how it works out. Thanks to all for the great info here -- I really can't think of another site where one can find such a rich source of good advice, experience, and (dare I say) wisdom.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: John Bridgman,

Roadside chicken has some similarties with Paul Dean's "Daddy's Tangy Grilling Sauce" which is as follows: 1 cup Worcestershire sauce;
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, melted;
2 lemons, juiced.

Anybody try it this way?

quote:

Originally posted by John Bridgman:
I haven't tried it with boneless chicken but it should be fine -- last time I made it I cut the chicken into 10 pieces so some of those pieces were pretty darned close to boneless

I made this with boneless chicken last night. Marinated about 2 hours which might have been a little to long although maybe a sweet glaze would have fixed that right up. Even still, it's hard to get boneless chicken to taste any better.

A quick question for the experts out there:

A couple of weeks ago I prepared some Roadside thighs for some friends as a preview of what I'd like to cook at their party July 7th. Went over great, they're all for it.

The meat menu will include pulled pork and roadside chicken. We will have some hot dogs and hamburgers on hand if needed for those discerning gourmets that always seem to pop up.

The attendance looks to be about 100 total (70 adults, 30 kids under 12 years).

I plan on smoking up 4 butts, each around 9 pounds or so. This will be pulled and kept warm in a crock pot.

The question: How much chicken should I get on the grill? I'll be doing thighs, legs, wings. Should 150 or so pieces be enough? 80 thighs, 36 legs, 36 wings? Am I going overboard?

The party starts at 1:00, they've requested food to be available no later than 3:30. The party will go on into the late hours of the night, with new faces appearing every now and then. I don't think there'll be a problem with too much food left over (there are usually quite a few togo bags put together also).

Steamed corn, cornbread, baked beans, pasta salads, green salads, etc will also be on hand.

So? What do you think? Anyone have some safe numbers?

And hey Mike in Paxton...I'll be in your town on both the 4th and the 8th cooking for another friend. We haven't nailed down that menu yet. The Tangy Grilling Sauce looks interesting, I may need to give it a try this weekend.

All input greatly appreciated!

quote:

Originally posted by jbaker:
A quick question for the experts out there:

The question: How much chicken should I get on the grill? I'll be doing thighs, legs, wings. Should 150 or so pieces be enough? 80 thighs, 36 legs, 36 wings? Am I going overboard?
All input greatly appreciated!

I've never cooked for a party that large but to ME it seems a LITTLE overboard. Not much though. 100 people and 150 pieces of chicken (albeit thighs and wings) plus 4 shoulders plus sides. Then again I may be totally wrong. I guess you have to factor in how many people will 4 shoulders that size will feed and I'd figure 2 pieces of chicken per person. It may be different there but the one thing I've noticed with cookouts here is people don't seem to gorge themselves as much as they normally do. Meaning everyone doesn't want to be 'that guy' who has 4 plates of food.

35 lbs of butts will shrink to about 17 lbs after 18 hours in the WSM, then figuring 3 - 4 oz servings we're at approx 50 servings (that's a "full" meal serving, we'll probably get more services out of it).

So yeah, it may be a little overboard, but maybe not by much.

Edit: I should mention also that I'm not paying for the goods...heh heh.

Nothing will go to waste. If it's not eaten it will go home with people.

Did I mention the ABT's and Dinosaur Eggs?