Smoked Bourbon Chicken

My General Electric oven has electronic ignition and every few years I have to have a new electronic ignition installed. GE has designed the oven so that you cannot replace the part without removing the oven door, making it more trouble than its worth. Until I can get the repairman out I am stuck using my grill for most of my cooking. I saw today’s recipe on a recent episode of Cook’s Country TV show. It looks deliciously smokey and is a minimum about of work. I used more wood chips than called for in the recipe, and there was beautiful pink smoke ring. 4-1/2 stars for its simplicity and wonderful smokiness.

Deeply smoked chicken with minimum effort

Comments:

1. I had trouble finding 3-1/2-pound chickens, so I used the smallest I could find; 4-1/2 pounds.
2. If you are using a gas grill, replace Step 7 with the following instructions: Remove the cooking grate and set the wood chips directly onto the primary burner. Replace cooking grate and set all burners to high. Cover and pre-heat grill for 15 minutes. Leave the primary burner set to high but turn off all other burners. You may need to adjust your primary burner to maintain grill temperature between 350 to 375 degrees.

Rating: 4-1/2 stars.
Cost: $12.
How much work? Low/Medium.
How big of a mess? Low/Medium.
Start time 5:00 PM. Ready at 5:45 PM.

Chris Kimball’s original recipe is here. My descriptions of how I prepared it today are given below:

1 shallot
4 garlic cloves
1-1/4 cups bourbon
1-1/4 cups soy sauce
1/2 cup packed brown sugar (3-2/3 ounces)
2 teaspoons pepper
2 whole chickens (3-1/2 to 4-lbs each)
1 cup wood chips
4 wooden skewers (12-inches)

1. Mince your shallot and 4 garlic cloves. Add to a medium saucepan along with equal amounts of bourbon and soy sauce. Add 1/2 cup brown sugar and 2 teaspoons ground black pepper.
2. Cover and put saucepan over medium-high burner until comes up to a boil; about 5 minutes. Boil for 1 minutes and remove from heat source; allow to cool completely; about 1 hour, but you can make and refrigerate it up to 3 days ahead-of-time.
3. Set aside 3/4 cup bourbon mixture for basting in Step 8.
4. Prepare the chicken by discarding giblets (or reserving to make chicken stock). Set chicken on a cutting board with the breast-side downward and use kitchen sheers to cut on each of the backbone.  Flip chicken over with skin-side upwards. Use a chef’s knife to cut through the center of the breast and split the chicken into two halves. Cut 1/2-inch deep slits, spaced 1/2-inch apart. Put one chicken (two halves) into 1-gallon Zip-lock bag (total of 2 zip-lock bags). Equally divide the marinade between the two bags. Seal and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, but preferably overnight. Flip occasionally to evenly distribute the marinade.
5. Soak 1 cup wood chips in water for at least 15 minutes. Remove wood chips from water and put center of a piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Wrap up and cut two 3″-slits in the top.
6. Remove chicken from marinade-filled bags and pat dry using paper towels. Throw away the marinade. Insert a skewer length-wise through the thickest part of breast down and through the thigh of each chicken half. (see photo)
7. Open the bottom vents of your grill half-way, and ignite a large chimney starts filled with charcoal; about 6 quarts. When the top coals become partially covered with fine grey ash, empty so that coals are steeply banked against on side of the grill, while the other side is completely empty.  Set wood packet directly on top of coals. Put grill grate in place, cover and allow to pre-heat for 5 minutes. Clean and oil cooking grate using paper-towels dipped in vegetable oil.
8. Set chicken on the grill with the skin-side up and the legs towards the fire. Cover grill and cook for 1bout 1-1/2 hours, basting with the reserved marinade every 15 minutes. After 45 minutes rotate the positions of the chicken so that they cook evenly; but still keeping the lets closer to the fire. The chicken will be done when the breast reach 160-degress and the thighs reach 175-degrees.
9. Set chicken on carving board and loosely tent with aluminum foil. Allow to rest for 20 minutes, before carving and serving.

Post-marinade

Finsihed chicken

Prep your chicken with 1/2″ deep slits