This is my second try at smoking chicken in the stove-top smoker. The last time was good: Smoked Chicken with Mac & Cheese but this was definitely Better!
Spatchcock‘d the chicken (which means cutting out the backbone & ribs and flattening out the chicken). Turned out ok! I thought this would be easier for smoking but I ended up cutting it entirely in half so that it would fit in the container I had for brining the chicken. Brined the chicken: approximately 3Tbsp kosher salt for every quart of water. Nothing complicated, although I think I will try to make a more flavorful brining mixture next time. Found some amazingly complicated but delicious sounding recipes.
While the chicken brined, made the Blue Cheese Cole Slaw – Pre-packaged cole slaw mix, low fat Blue Cheese Salad dressing, crumbled gorgonzola – combined and put in the fridge to “marinade”.
Brined the chicken for 3 hours, rinsed off the chicken and patted dry. Rubbed in LOTS of minced garlic and equally Lots of freshly ground black pepper. Set up pan with 2 Tbsp hickory smoking chips. Put pan over medium-high heat, once smoked started to appear, closed cover tightly and smoked for 60 minutes (internal temperature of 170-degrees with thermometer inserted in the thickest part of the thigh).
Perfect. The skin could probably be slightly crisper but it was still tasty.
Plated: slices of both white and dark meat. Both were equally moist and tender, which says a lot for the white meat. Leaving the skin on definitely helps keep the moisture in during the process. The cole slaw was a good side, lots of flavor to match the smokey flavor of the chicken.
This was technically a “Sunday Roast”. My kids were visiting their Dad for the weekend so it was just my Heart and I for dinner but what is Sunday Roast without dessert. Packaged pirouettes with Amaretto Whipped Cream – simple but absolutely delicious.