Roadside Chicken


 
Wow-- I made this on Sunday with some organic leg quarters and it was delicious! Mopped some sauce on every 5-10 minutes. Had the last leg quarter for lunch today. Didn't bother to heat it up--still tasty!
 
WOW!! I've seen this recipe on this forum for years now... never tried it until last night... all I can say is it was AWESOME!!! More often than not, I am not a big fan of grilled chicken (just to bland for me), but this recipe has changed that! Seriously, if you have not cooked up some of this "Road Side Chicken" you are missing out!!
 
so what was your method? charcoal? gas? WSM? marinade with oil? w/o oil?
 
I made some wings with this last night. I didn't have time to marinate. My experience:

Didn't have celery salt, used celery seed instead.

Did use vegetable oil.

I did not cut up the wings to make drummettes and wings like you'd find at the restaurant, but that's only because I didn't even think of it. I think parting the wings out would make a little easier to work on the grill.

Set up for indirect, banking about 3/4 chimney full on top of leftover unspent from night before. Next time, I'll go with a full chimney, as the coals kind of petered out towards the end.

Basted every 5 minutes, flipped every 10, for as long as it took to feel like I got good color. Thermapen showed around 165, so I pulled lid and settled in to work the wings on direct heat. This was a little challenging, if only because the smoke it produced made it hard to stand in and keep everything moving.

It was actually pretty fun managing the wings and trying to keep them from getting too burnt.

Next time, I'd like to try emulsifying the sauce a little more, as it seemed really loose to me, and didn't really "stick" to the wings. However, I plan on marinating, too, which will help. I also basted them each a last time right after I pulled each from the grill.

They were very tasty, no other sauce needed, and I can't wait to make them again with some small tweaks. Thanks for the thread, and the recipe!

Pics next time, if I can remember!
 
guess what Larry, it's even BETTER over charcoal!
You get those juices drippin' on those red hot coals and that emits more real live barbecue flavour... holey hotpantspartner! You'll L?VE it!
Welcome to the forum Mr. Hoosier!
Now hit Craigs List for a nice CHARCOAL WEBER ONE TOUCH and you'll come back and thank me.
Talk with ya soon dude!
 
Originally posted by Jim Lampe:
guess what Larry, it's even BETTER over charcoal!
You get those juices drippin' on those red hot coals and that emits more real live barbecue flavour... holey hotpantspartner! You'll L?VE it!
Welcome to the forum Mr. Hoosier!
Now hit Craigs List for a nice CHARCOAL WEBER ONE TOUCH and you'll come back and thank me.
Talk with ya soon dude!

Have you ever done this on the WSM without a pan. Seems that it would give the good direct cooking without the fire touching the chicken.
 
Not yet Jeff... this weekend, I will.
<span class="ev_code_GREY">whaddaya think about that!?!??</span>
icon_biggrin.gif
 
Originally posted by Jeff R:

Originally posted by Jim Lampe:
guess what Larry, it's even BETTER over charcoal!
You get those juices drippin' on those red hot coals and that emits more real live barbecue flavour... holey hotpantspartner! You'll L?VE it!
Welcome to the forum Mr. Hoosier!
Now hit Craigs List for a nice CHARCOAL WEBER ONE TOUCH and you'll come back and thank me.
Talk with ya soon dude!

Have you ever done this on the WSM without a pan. Seems that it would give the good direct cooking without the fire touching the chicken.

Almost always when I do. See way up thread posted photos and all a long time ago. Door out no pan, use the lid to control flare/flames.

Basically use the WSM as an UDS (ugly drum smoker). Works fantastic. Easier and more friendly to use than the kettle.

So stack up the fuel and get things super hot - basically two full chimney of lit to start then add depending.

It's all good. It's basically how I cook Bryan S's recipe. I do some mod on the prep but that's negligible.

Put that high hot chimney to work (WSM)!
 
I'd like to add that if you mix some xanthan gum in the vinegar/oil, the mixture is easier to apply. Dripping is redused, and then you'll get less flare- ups.
 
Originally posted by Jeff R:

Originally posted by Jim Lampe:
guess what Larry, it's even BETTER over charcoal!
You get those juices drippin' on those red hot coals and that emits more real live barbecue flavour... holey hotpantspartner! You'll L?VE it!
Welcome to the forum Mr. Hoosier!
Now hit Craigs List for a nice CHARCOAL WEBER ONE TOUCH and you'll come back and thank me.
Talk with ya soon dude!

Have you ever done this on the WSM without a pan. Seems that it would give the good direct cooking without the fire touching the chicken.
On page 3 is where I found it. I knew I had posted this somewhere over the years. WSM RS Chicken
 
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I have tried RS Chicken using the UDS method and it works quite well although having only 1 chimney, I'm not sure if I was able to get the fire hot enough but the method is good for a high heat smoke session where you want the temps up around the 320F mark.

cheers

Davo
 
I did some RS yardbird again yesterday, as it had been a good while. It all turned out fine, but there are some challenges to it...and that's X 2 if cooking on two grills at once.

Anyway, Xanthan gum is probably a good idea to help the baste to stick, and maybe less oil, as well? You need to baste a bunch to build up layers, but I honestly don't see how you can't get the time down to much under an hour if you baste as often as suggested.

I use both of my grills with this recipe since I want plenty of room to be able to move pieces around. It's inevitable that all the basting will put out some of the coals, and yes, I even use a worster bottle. (I should mention that this technique is best if you're sober.) Anyhow, I guess the best way not to crowd the grill for RS is to not put any more chicken on the grate than will fit if you don't include the parts of the grate that are hinged. That way you can easily move pieces around and toss a few more coals in under the hinged sides, kind of providing some indirect heat to boost the direct. Also, I let each piece of chicken get it's turn over those hot spots to crisp up the skin.

The creole mustard was a very nice addition to this recipe, and next time I'll use a little more. I'll probably marinate longer as well since 5 hours just doesn't seem to do as well as 8+. I marinated overnight once and thought that was too long, though.

One other thing; I used some sassafrass this time, and that works really well with this "recipe". It was a total of 14 leg quarters over two 22.5" Webers, and cook time was about 1.25 hr. since some were HUGE. I need to work on thickening the baste so I don't need to as often to get the flavor and reduce my cook time at the same time.
 
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I use this recipe on my gasser with grill grates and the grill cranked pretty high. The grill grates prevent any noticeable flare ups and were made for this recipe.
 
I use this recipe on my gasser with grill grates and the grill cranked pretty high. The grill grates prevent any noticeable flare ups and were made for this recipe.

Brian how long did you marinate? I marinated for about 10 hrs and cook 4 breasts on my weber gas grill. The chicken was almost bitter tasting from the vinegar. I'm thinking I marinated way too long
 
I went searching for a "roadside chicken" recipe last week, not actually thinking something would really exist. However, I found this thread and when I saw that the OP was also from Lancaster Co., I KNEW this is the recipe I was in search of. Growing up around here, I've always loved the fundraiser chicken that you can get every weekend along the road and this recipe is so close to it. I cooked it up for the first time on Saturday. I marinaded it for about 5 hours and then basted every 5+ minutes.

I am just getting back to charcoal grilling so I'm very inexperienced with it. I did have some trouble with this recipe in the beginning. My first mistake, I believe, I made the grill too hot. My plan was to do direct heat. I saw some people using a full lit chimney and half unlit so I decide to do similar as I didn't want to run out of heat. I only used maybe 10-15 extra unlit bricks but it was way too hot. I couldn't keep the flames down when it was direct. My other problem was the lid. I thought the idea was to always keep the lid close as much as possible so after I basted, I put the lid down. However, when I did that, TONS of smoke would pour out. When I removed the lid, it took a good bit for the smoke to clear out and then noticed that the chicken started to ash. Luckily I caught it quick enough and i basted the ash off and moved it to indirect heat, plus I left the lid off. I still had plenty of heat and it cooked around an hour I believe.

In the end, it came out great. The flavor is similar to the roadside stands and I couldn't be happier about that. Everyone that tried it Saturday loved it. I have a bunch of family coming over next weekend and I plan on making this again. Now my problem is, since I couldn't get it to work right over direct, it is going to severely limit the amount of space I have on the grill. Does anyone have any tips on what I may have done right/wrong.

Here is the chick mid-cook:

 
Congrats Tim. Looks good.
few comments about your questions. First, I usually make the marinate without the oil added, then separate the marinade keeping some for basting. I then add the oil to the marinade that I will put with the chicken. The separated marinade I use for basting gets only a small amount of oil. This way, I do not get the "flare ups" from the oil when basting. I think some of the excess smoke you had was from the oil in your basting sauce.
I also cook over direct heat but do it at "medium" rather than hot.
Good luck on your next cook. By the way, where are you located in PA? We moved to NC from the Wallingford area.
Ray
 

 

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