Jim's excellent post on spatchcocking chicken gave me the idea for this post. Last year I was asked to attend a little girl's 1st bday. So I decided as a present, I would cook up a bunch of chickens to feed the expected crowd. I figured it would be a lot different than the usual burgers/sausage & hotdog trifecta one usually sees.
The night before, I bought the birds and cut them in half. I got out of work late and didn't get them on the WSM before dark. When I do mine, I usually just cut 'em in half and skip doing any trimming unless there are big fat pockets to take out.
Getting loaded up... first rack.
Another would go on top of that. For the firespice, on would go a smallish chunk of apple, and a bigger chunk of cherry. After about an hour, I opened up the door to make sure I didn't have a disaster in there. Looked good. I swapped position of the racks, and turned the birds over skin side down.
Got the WSM closed up again and took the birds off about 45 minutes later. Temp was 170, I knew I'd be good to go the next day. They basically looked like this when they came off. They looked real dry, but I found that there was a bucketload of juice under that skin. All the chickens went into the freezer for a quick cooldown, then I cut 'em into 1/4's. Wrap in foil, and into the fridge for the night. Me....off to bed!
I also bought a sizeable roaster to throw on for ourselves. I figured that the fire would be still going... no point in wasting it. Smoked chicken salad here we come.
The next day, Cat & I got to the party and I got the gasser working. I'd made a simple fruit sauce the night before, and gave the birds a bath. A half hour in there warmed 'em up nicely and put a couple grill marks on them. The sauce married with all that chicken juice and became nice & thick too. Probably 60 people showed up, more than half were adults. Not bragging, but the chicken was a massive hit. The little one's mom came up to me after we were done and shoved some money in my pocket, saying She would be totally offended if I didn't accept it. I didn't want to be rude so I waited till we left ourselves. Wasn't expecting that at all seeing that I'd told 'em before that it was a present for the baby. Turned out she gave me 50!
The night before, I bought the birds and cut them in half. I got out of work late and didn't get them on the WSM before dark. When I do mine, I usually just cut 'em in half and skip doing any trimming unless there are big fat pockets to take out.
Getting loaded up... first rack.
Another would go on top of that. For the firespice, on would go a smallish chunk of apple, and a bigger chunk of cherry. After about an hour, I opened up the door to make sure I didn't have a disaster in there. Looked good. I swapped position of the racks, and turned the birds over skin side down.
Got the WSM closed up again and took the birds off about 45 minutes later. Temp was 170, I knew I'd be good to go the next day. They basically looked like this when they came off. They looked real dry, but I found that there was a bucketload of juice under that skin. All the chickens went into the freezer for a quick cooldown, then I cut 'em into 1/4's. Wrap in foil, and into the fridge for the night. Me....off to bed!
I also bought a sizeable roaster to throw on for ourselves. I figured that the fire would be still going... no point in wasting it. Smoked chicken salad here we come.
The next day, Cat & I got to the party and I got the gasser working. I'd made a simple fruit sauce the night before, and gave the birds a bath. A half hour in there warmed 'em up nicely and put a couple grill marks on them. The sauce married with all that chicken juice and became nice & thick too. Probably 60 people showed up, more than half were adults. Not bragging, but the chicken was a massive hit. The little one's mom came up to me after we were done and shoved some money in my pocket, saying She would be totally offended if I didn't accept it. I didn't want to be rude so I waited till we left ourselves. Wasn't expecting that at all seeing that I'd told 'em before that it was a present for the baby. Turned out she gave me 50!
