Huli Huli Chicken takes her back!

SmartyPantz · January 2019

Greetings Egg-nerds!

This morning my beautiful bride looked at the mild sunny day we had in store and suggested, "Why don't you do something on the egg?"

(Did I marry up or what?!)

With that bit of inspiration, I reached for the book dear ole mom got me for Christmas, Guy Fieri's Guy on Fire, to see if there was anything I could do. My wife said she'd love chicken and then on page 231 there was this recipe and story about the legendary Hawaiian dish, Huli Huli Chicken. Well, I'd never had it before but that didn't stop me.

Per the recipe, I started by brining 2 chickens in a brine of salt, sugar, bay leaves and crushed garlic. Total brine time was 5.5 hours.

Then I veered off course and saw a Emeril video where he did an injection marinade. I have an injector I'd never used so I thought this sounds good! But I didn't follow his recipe exactly either. His used a full beer, but I used pineapple juice, since I had bought some to use for the Huli hull sauce. The injection marinade was 1/2 cup honey, almost a half cup Worcestershire sauce, 1/4 cup sherry vinegar, 2 tablespoons paprika, salt, pepper, 6 cloves crushed garlic and a small can of pineapple juice, blended with the immersion blender. I then injected the two birds liberally. (SO glad I added this step!)

Then I made the dry rub per the recipe in the book: garlic powder, onion powder kosher salt, paprika, cayenne, little bit of cumin and black pepper.

Veered off the recipe again and cooked raised direct at approx. 325 dome temp for 1.75 hours reaching internal temp of minimum 165.

YOU GOTTA MAKE THE SAUCE! - Pineapple juice, ketchup, soy sauce, sherry vinegar, brown sugar and ginger. Baste birds 5 minutes before pulling off and save plenty for dipping.

My GAWD, this is some of the best dang shicken I've ever made. You should try it!!!

Best part of the cook was my neighbor came over to help me supervise and keep me in lighter fluid (triple imperial Belgian from a local brew house). He's army and moved here from his previous duty in Hawaii, so he was familiar with the dish. After I sent him home with his chicken, his wife texted me, "...the chicken you made took me right back to a place we used to go to in Waikiki beach...". Hell yeah! As they say on Insta, "Nailed It!!!"

up