Tea-smoked chicken

Botch

I saw steven raichlen do this on Saturday, really unusual and it had me intrigued, so I made it.  Recipe here:  
https://barbecuebible.com/recipe/tea-smoked-chicken/
 
First, a "tea"/brine is made by dissolving salt, brown sugar, 5-spice powder and soy sauce in water.  Once dissolved, steep (I used a strainer in the pot, upright) cloves, cinnamon sticks, star anise, bay, black tea, peppercorns, and coriander seeds until cool; brine chicken for 24 hours.  The color out of the brine was pretty cool:
 

 
I went for chicken thighs instead of a whole chicken, and dusted half of them with the 50-50 cornstarch/baking powder mixture, to see which I preferred.  
 
Then smoked indirect at 300˚, with an even odder "smoking mixture": cherry, uncooked rice, more tea, more brown sugar (I had to use turbinado because, while softening my brown sugar on the driveway the night before, I broke the bag), more cinnamon, more star anise and 3 strips of tangerine peel (I used an orange as the market wouldn't sell me one tangerine).  Recipe called for 3 hours cooking time, spreading 1/3 of the smoking mixture over the coals each time (kinda hard to do on an Egg).  I spread 1/3 on the coals before adding the chicken, and it ignited immediately but I got Mr. Egg closed up.  What an exotic smell!  
 
Three hours at 300˚ seemed like a lot, so I set the alarm for 45 minutes and checked temp; they were almost done.  I grabbed my prototype "Smoking Wood Bottom Injector" and slid in some more of the smoking mixture thru the bottom vent, into the bottom of the Egg.  After 15 more minutes that mixture was consumed and the chicken, done.  
 

 
What a looker!  The thighs without the cornstarch/bp had a gorgeous color, and those with the cs/bp weren't bad and nicely crunchy.  Fresh tomatoes and sweetcorn made for a good meal (not shown, a fresh Utard peach for dessert).  
 

 
Really good taste on these things, although a little overpowering.  I'll only use half as much of the smoking mixture next time.  I'd never thought that burning spices would taste like anything other than smoke, but they were very tasty and exotic, and I was surprised.  A keeper for sure, but not a weekly cook.
 
This time of year used to be my least-favorite (school starting) but is now my favorite, although drawing to a close.  The green chile's been harvested/roasted, still have tomatoes, sweetcorn and peaches but time's running out... 
 
Thanks for looking.  

caliking

Looks delicious!. Lots of flavors packed in there. And, love the color on the chix.

nolaegghead

interesting.  I like the creativity from the everyday routine posted here.

I would imagine any organic material with very small mass would almost immediately combust when you put on the coals.  Maybe try wrapping it up in some foil to keep oxygen out?

CPARKTX2

Wow great color, nice work

dbCooper

Looks and sounds very tasty.  Thanks for sharing.

Any pics of that "smoking wood bottom injector"?

Botch

dbCooper said:

Any pics of that "smoking wood bottom injector"?

Here's my thread on that experiment:  
https://eggheadforum.com/discussion/1227822/clean-smoke-experiment-3#latest
 
I haven't been egging too much this summer, its been too hot.  I need to make a permanent version of this and use it (although the foil prototype works, if anyone wants to experiment).  

Lowcountrygamecock

I can’t remember the cooks name to give him credit for it but somebody always cooks sweet tea brined chicken wings at the Georgia mountain eggfest and they are fantastic.  One of my favorite things from that eggfest. 

Stormbringer

Buckwoody Egger

Lowcountrygamecock said:

I can’t remember the cooks name to give him credit for it but somebody always cooks sweet tea brined chicken wings at the Georgia mountain eggfest and they are fantastic.  One of my favorite things from that eggfest. 

thanks for the note on these, found the recipe in the 2018 file, credited to EggyBear, and thanks to the GA MTN eggfest for the recipe diligence as well

https://georgiamountainfairgrounds.com/pageserver/eggfest-recipes