New to the Egg

Enjoy the journey! 

Welcome!!

Welcome aboard.

Welcome!

I have had my XL for almost two years and love it! I am still learning, but I really like to experiment. I have been lurking on this forum since a few months before I bought the Egg, so I felt like i had a bit of a head start. I don't think there is anything you can't cook on the Egg, or at least nothing that I would eat. I have done lots of stuff from appetizers to desserts, and when I throw a party, everyone raves. I have learned a lot from this forum, and from a few books, and from a couple of Eggfests. Welcome to the fin!

Sarends said:

...  Spratchcock chicken - just so so - kinda grossed me out for some reason. 

First, CONGRATULATIONS on going from "not a cook" to cooking wonderful, even unbelievable" stuff on your Big Green Egg!  Not surprised, because I LOVE cooking on my Eggs, but I loved cooking even before I got them.  Great job!

Second, the spatchcock should have been every bit as good as the boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and the point there is that it's a learning opportunity! Please don't just decide you don't like a spatchcocked roast chicken and never try it again, but try to sort out what it was more precisely that you didn't like, and learn from that.  EVERYBODY messes stuff up, sometimes -- I am less expert than many, here, and I most definitely have, but learning from the mistakes just keeps making everything better and better!

On that line, you might find it useful to keep a log of some sort of what went well, what didn't go so well, how you did it, etc..  I do this very much less than I used to, but it was REALLY helpful especially when I began to be able to refer back to how I cooked something last time, and what went well or not so well, and what thoughts did I have for what to do next time.

The three most typical complaints about chicken are either:

• Underdone: moist but sort of an unpleasant, rubbery sort of moistness.
• Overdone: dry, tough.
• Skin not crisp

Sometimes it can be a little tricky to get the dark meat done enough without getting the light meat overdone, so maybe if you weren't crazy about the spatchcock chicken, stick to just breasts or just thighs for a while.  If you have a good instant-read thermometer that will help (most folks here love Thermapens -- I'm one of them.  They're quite expensive, but really good).  I like chicken legs at least 165° or 170°, but white meat can be starting to get overdone at the same temperatures.  The thing to do is to measure the temperature and then see how YOU like it, and cook it the way YOU like it, regardless of what somebody else may prefer.  (My wife prefers chicken more done than I do, for example.)

You've already done GREAT!  It's just going to keep getting better!

The Naked Whiz has a site you may also want to explore. Here is how he does Spatch. http://www.nakedwhiz.com/spatch.htm.  Edit- he has recipes also:http://www.nakedwhiz.com/recipes.htm