Tonight\'s cook, as promised, ET-73\'s 1st use

I just received a Maverick ET-73 and thought I'd give it a go tonight with something simple and fast, a spatchcock chicken. I know that's not the intention with this device, but I wanted a quick opportunity to give it a trial run along with a high probability that one or more alarms would sound, again for testing purposes. So after asking a few questions about the device Grandpa's Grub requested that I photograph the cook. So here it is. It's not fancy, it wasn't superb, but it was darn good and it gave me a chance to test out the Maverick. A great side note is that the chicken skin was the best I've made thus far! It was crispy and delicious, not rubbery like all of my previous attemps. I'll share how I did it below.

I prepared my large with the platesetter and got it up to almost 400 degrees. Every spatchcock recipe I've read call for direct cooking, but I wanted to make GG's mixed veggie pan so I went indirect. Since I was cooking indirect I guessed that I would have to cook at a higher temp. Was this correct? At any rate, while the Egg was heating up, I cut up some onion, red pepper and green bell pepper. I also boiled some red potatos and a sweet potato, but only partially cooked them. I figured they would need more time to cook on the Egg than the veggies, which is why they were partially cooked before being cut and added to the veggies. All of these were placed into a foil pan that I greased with butter to prevent sticking. They were topped with EVOO and DP's Shakin' the Tree.



The bird was seasoned with Bad Byron's Butt Rub. Here's the bird on the Egg with the veg beneath. The bird's drippings went into the pan to further season the veggies. This of course changed the profile of the meal from healthy to fairly unhealthy.



Here's the Maverick, doing its thing.



Once the Maverick indicated that the chicken was done I removed the veggies and the platesetter and flipped the bird skin down. I opened up the Egg and got'er up to about 475 for 3 minutes, then removed the bird. The skin was so crispy I couldn't believe it.



Here are the cooked veggies.



While they were off the Egg waiting for the direct portion of the chicken cook the veggies were sprinkled with some grated parmesan and shredded Mexican cheeses and covered with aluminum foil to melt the cheese.



Here's my plate (my first one, anyway).




And now a brief review of the ET-73. I really dislike the fact that the back door has to be removed to turn the transmitter on and off. I also don't like the fact that, when setting temperatures for alarms, there's no way to select a lower number; one must continue all the way up and continue on to the lowest value, then ascend numerically to the desired number. Both the meat probe and the pit probe measured around 10 degrees higher than my Thermapen and the BGE dome thermometer, respectively. I overcame this by setting the meat temp alarm 10 degrees higher than actually desired, so in this case, 175 degrees. Other than those shortcomings, I really liked being able to sit in the house and play with my daughter without worrying about the Egg's temp while the food cooked. Even though it was only a 1 hour cook it gave me a level of comfort I haven't yet experienced with BGE cooking, and I'll be using the Maverick often!