BBQ Chicken on Grill
By Cat, Jul 2011 (Photo, right, from Wikimedia Commons)
- Includes: 1. Honey BBQ Chicken recipe with: 2. Charcoal grill instructions; or 3. Gas grill instructions.
- See also: 1. Poultry & Fowl Menu
In 2 days it will be July 4, and I was planning on making fried chicken, until I saw this recipe. I don’t have my big gas grill set up yet (no deck or patio…), but I do have a 1960s-vintage charcoal grill. It doesn’t have a lid, so I will improvise. I lined the inside of a turkey roasting pan lid to help keep it clean – I like it because it has a handle on top of the lid for easy removal.
In the past, I have found that parboiling the chicken before butterflying and barbecuing saves time on the grill (and avoids over-burning the skin). It also allows the meat to retain more moisture over the hot flames. But I’ve never had a grill with a cover, so parboiling may not be necessary with this recipe.
Grill-Roasted, Honey BBQ Chicken
This recipe is adapted from Fine Cooking (1) and serves 4. They also provide a video on How to Butterfly a Chicken (2). Instead of chicken you could butterfly 2 game hens; I used 1 game hen for testing (see below).
The original recipe called for chipotle chili powder; I could not find that so used smoked paprika powder instead for testing (see below).
I prefer to use Tamari soy sauce rather than regular soy because Tamari is fermented, which is far more healthful than non-fermented. Also, the recipe calls for Kosher salt which I would use for the brine, but prefer to use unrefined sea salt for the spice rub.
Ingredients & Equipment:
- 1 roasting chicken (3.5 – 4 lb), or 2 Cornish game hens, butterflied. Brine the entire butterflied hen but brine only the breast portion of a butterflied chicken.
Spice rub
- 1 clove garlic, minced and crushed with ¼ tsp unrefined sea salt
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp unrefined sea salt
- 1 tsp chili powder
- ¼ tsp chipotle chile powder or smoked paprika powder
- 1 tsp sweet Hungarian paprika
- 1 tsp Rapadura sugar (or light brown sugar)
- 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme
- ¾ tsp freshly ground black pepper
Honey glaze
- ¼ cup local honey
- 1 Tbsp Tamari soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp homemade catsup
- 2 tsp Dijon mustard
- 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp cider vinegar
- ½ – 1 tsp red chile paste (or other Asian chili paste such as Spiracha)
Equipment
- 3 small bowls
- knife
- gas or charcoal grill, with lid
- cutting board
Method:
- Optional: Brine the breast portion of the chicken for 30 minutes (see brining chicken), or brine whole game hen for 20 minutes (see brining game hens).
- Butterfly the bird by cutting out the backbone with poultry shears (cut on each side of backbone from tail to neck); reserve backbone for making chicken stock. Pat bird dry on all sides.
- Prepare spice rub: mince garlic; sprinkle with 1/4 tsp salt and press to a paste with the side of a knife blade, then scoop into small bowl. Add remaining ingredients and mix with fork until combined.
- Rub all over the chicken and between the breast meat and skin. Cover and refrigerate for up to 24 hours, or let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- Prepare honey glaze by combining all ingredients in a small bowl; set aside 1/4 cup of the glaze for drizzling over the cooked chicken.
Charcoal Grill Instructions
Prepare a charcoal fire with a hot zone and a cooler zone by pushing all the coals to one side of the grill.
- The hot zone should register about 450°F with the lid down (use oven thermometer resting on grill grate over hot zone). Or you should be able to hold your hand a couple inches above the grill for 3 – 4 seconds. If too hot, let the coals cook down.
- The cool zone should register about 350°F, with the lid down.
- Brush grill grates with a stiff wire brush, then wipe with a lightly oiled wad of paper towels. I would use coconut oil or lard for this purpose, as veggie oils and olive oil are not meant for such high heat.
- Set chicken, skin-side down, on grill over hot zone, cover, and cook until nicely browned and easily releases from the grates, 5 – 10 minutes. Watch carefully; if a flare-up occurs, move the chicken away from the flames until they die down. You can also squirt the flames with a little water to quench them.
- Flip chicken (skin-side up) and move it to the cooler zone of the grill. Brush bird with some of the honey glaze, cover, and cook, brushing with the glaze every 5 minutes, until thickest part of thigh registers 165° – 170°F, about 30 minutes (NOTE: game hens may require more or less time). Check on the fire occasionally – you may need to add fresh charcoal as the fire dies down.
- Remove to cutting board for 5 minute rest before carving and serving with the reserved glaze.
Gas Grill Instructions:
- Heat all burners to medium low: should register about 450°F with the lid down (use oven thermometer resting on grill grate). Or you should be able to hold your hand a couple inches above the grill for 3 – 4 seconds. If too hot, lower burners slightly.
- Brush grill grates with stiff wire brush, then wipe with lightly oiled wad of paper towels. I would use coconut oil or lard for this purpose, as veggie oils and olive oil are not meant for such high heat.
- Set chicken, skin side down, on the grill. Cover and cook until nicely browned and easily releases from the grates, about 5 – 10 minutes. Watch carefully for flare-ups. Move chicken away from flames until they die down; if necessary, squirt flames with a little water to quench.
- For 3-burner grill, turn middle burner off and set the front and back burners to medium low. For 2-burner grill, turn the back burner off and set the front burner on high.
- Flip chicken (skin-side up) and move it over an ‘off’ burner – the cool zone – which should register 350°F.
- Brush bird with some of the glaze, cover, and cook, brushing with glaze every 5 minutes, until thickest part of thigh registers 165° – 170°F, about 30 minutes.
- Remove to cutting board for 5 minute rest before carving and serving with the reserved glaze.
Testing
Game hen, July 3-4, 2011: Lined a roasting pan lid with foil to help keep it clean. Will only cook 1 game hen, so modified ingredients accordingly. Butterflied, then cut in half through breast bone. Prepared rub and marinated game hen as instructed, about 24 hours; did not brine first. Prepared honey glaze as directed except I didn’t have soy sauce, so used Braggs Aminos.
Started coals in my BBQ unit around 5 PM. The hottest they would heat the grill was just a bit above 350°F, with my foil lid over the area. So I put the hen halves on the grill around 5:45 PM, skin down and seared them about 10 minutes. A few flames, but not too bad – kept them in check. Then rearranged the coals, turned the meat over and slid them a bit off the coals. This area is between 300° and 350°F. The improvised cover just fits over the two hen halves in butterfly position.
Turned the over (skin-side up). Brushed three times with honey glaze, about 20 minutes apart, and cooked with cover on (basting at 5:50, 6:10 and 6:30). Added a few more coals with first 2 bastings. Thigh and breast registered 165° – 170° F at 6:45. I removed hen halves from the grill, and let them rest while I braised my greens. Total cooking time: 60 minutes.
Served with Waldorf Salad, steamed beet root, and braised broccolini and green beans. And sweet cherry cobbler with vanilla ice cream for dessert.
The hens were DELICIOUS, but the breasts were a little dry. Next time I will brine the hens. If using a chicken, I would keep the breast section in the brine and the rest of the bird out of the brine, to shorten brine time.
Game hen, July 11-12, 2011: Made as before except this time I brined the whole hen for an hour, trying just to do the breast, by using a narrow bowl so that only the breast would be in the brine. I used just a scant ¼ cup Kosher salt and 1 ¾ cups water for the brine. Roasted as before, on grill; and reduced the amount of salt in the rub.
One problem: the oven thermometer went off scale, which meant the fire got hotter this time (over 500°F), and then it broke so I could not continue to monitor temp. The chicken cooked too quickly even when moved away from the coals, so when I inserted the instant read thermometer into the thigh, the meat had shrunk and did not give accurate reading. I ended up cooking it 15 minutes too long. Still, it was quite good. This recipe is a keeper.
References:
- Fine Cooking recipe (finecooking.com/recipes/grill-roasted-honey-barbecued-chicken.aspx)
- How to Butterfly a Chicken video (finecooking.com/videos/butterfly-chicken.aspx)
