Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Smoking A Chicken Can Be Hazardous To Your Health

... but mostly, it's filled to the brim with smoky deliciousness!

Using our friends' offset smoker, we followed the recipe found here as described by Kentucky Hunting Forum member trust me. We butterflied the chicken and smoked it for three hours using hickory chips for the smoke. For the last hour and a half we basted it with the oil, lard, salt and pepper mix. I used a pork rub on half the chicken and left the other half alone. It proved irrelevant for reasons I'll explain later.

I wasn't sure about the sauce ingredient measurements, so I slopped about a third of a cup of lard in a stainless steel bowl, the same amount of vegetable oil and then about a teaspoon each of salt and pepper. As you can see from the photos, I stuck the bowl in the smoker, too and the heat melted the lard. It also kept the bowl handy, so all I had to do to baste was open the lid and slather the bird with the sauce. No need to touch the bowl at all. Since the smoker didn't get above 220, the basting sauce never boiled away or burned.

The end result was glorious. Moist and delicious through and through. For the most part, the skin was too leathery to eat, making the rub a waste of time. The basting sauce did make it's way into the flavor and the smell and taste of the lard added a distinctive richness to the meat without making it greasy at all. The whole affair was definitely worthy of a repeat performance.



5 comments:

tim eisele said...

Yum!

I've heard that once one gets started smoking food, it's hard to stop. Got any fish to try next?

Anonymous said...

actually have a smoker on my grill that i have yet to use. any advice on where to start?

K T Cat said...

Tim, I hadn't thought of fish. Great idea!

K T Cat said...

drozz, my suggestion would be to check the web for recipes and ideas. That's where I'm getting mine. This is just my second foray into smoking with this behemoth, so I'm not much of an expert.

I used to own one of those inexpensive, silo-shaped smokers and while I had some success with it, I never really got into it. There's something about this monster that is so much fun to use. As for smoking on a Weber, I'd check it out on YouTube or the web. I've seen the recipes in my searches, so I know they are out there.

Foxfier said...

Oh, gads... now I want to try it, too....