OT - What are you doing right now?

The Chicken

"About thirty years ago I was living in North Carolina for a few years building a factory. This is when I met my wife. Her father used to take me to chicken shacks as they were called. Places the average person would never find, miles out in the woods with no signs. One place was Keaton's chicken, a small maybe ten table establishment run by an elderly black gentleman. He was very particular about who he would serve, if he didn't like you or you were rude, you wouldn't eat. His chicken tasted like nothing I had ever tasted before and had people lined up every night for it. After moving back to Arizona I found myself craving the taste of it and attempted to duplicate it. My wife's aunt had a recipe for BBQ chicken that I tried, then tweaked until I came up with a flavor profile that matched my memory.

"For the last 10 years or so, my daughters' boyfriends, and some now husbands, have liked this recipe so much that they dubbed it "The Chicken". Last night I combined my new love of cooking veggies in chicken fat with this unusual chicken recipe, and thought I'd share. I chopped up some potatoes, poblano pepper, bell pepper, mushrooms and a sweet onion. I then added minced garlic, thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper and parsley. I tossed them together in a disposable lasagna pan."

Next I took chicken quarters and tossed them in a ziplock bag with some flour. They don't need any seasoning. Set the Egg up with the plate setter legs up, a grid on the plate setter and a raised grid clipped onto the main grid. Stabilize your cooker with a dome temperature of 350 degrees. The chicken parts go on the top shelf with the veggies underneath.

I let that cook for 90 minutes while I gathered up the ingredients for the sauce:

• Juice of 1 lemon
• 2 Tbs crushed red pepper
• 2 Tbs black pepper
• 1 Tbs cayene pepper
• 4 Tbs kosher salt
• 2 Tbs chile powder
• 2 Tbs Louisiana hot sauce
• 2 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
• 1 Tbs garlic powder
• 2 Tbs dijon mustard
• 1 pint of white vinegar

I whisked that together and brought it to a boil then whisked in 1/2 cup of vegetable oil.

With the sauce very hot, I pulled the chicken from the Egg, and dipped it then set it on a piece of foil. I drizzled a few extra Tbs of the sauce over the piece then wrapped it up tight in the foil. Note: the sauce is supposed to be thin, do not try to thicken it. The idea is it steeps into the meat. The foil packages get wrapped in towels and put into a cooler for 30-60 minutes.

The Veggies were outstanding. And the chicken was, well "The" chicken. -RP