How to Barbecue Chicken
Summer isn't really summer without tackling a few recipes for how to barbecue chicken. With minimal prep time and the grill itself doing most of the heavy lifting, hosts preparing barbecue chicken can mingle with guests--and still end up with a fabulous meal.Marinating chicken prior to grilling is one of the best ways to add flavor to the meat. Also, most marinades contain some sort of an acid (such as vinegar), which helps break down tough tissues in the meat and make it tender. Make sure chicken is placed in the refrigerator during the marinating process for food-safety reasons. Also, never serve the "raw" marinade the meat was sitting in--always bring it to a boil if planning to serve, to kill any bacteria.
Sauce can burn when grilling barbecue chicken, especially if it contains sugary ingredients like honey or molasses. If possible, baste the chicken with the sauce toward the end of the cooking process, and serve additional sauce alongside the meat at the meal.
According to the USDA, chicken is done when its internal temperature reaches 165 degrees F, which can be checked by placing an instant-read thermometer in the innermost part of the thigh and wing (being careful not to touch the bone), and the thickest part of the breast.
Transcript
-Hi, everyone, I'm Judith. Well, today, we'll be making finger
licking barbecue chicken, a really great dish especially when you're
entertaining outdoors. So, what you will need is 3 to
4 pounds of meaty chicken pieces; 1-1/2 cups of dried
cherry; 1 cup finely chopped onion; 1/4 cup of lemon
juice; 2 bay leaves; 6 cloves of garlic, minced; 1
15-ounce can tomato puree; 1/4 cup of honey; 3 tablespoons
of light flavored molasses; 1 teaspoon of salt; 1/2 teaspoon
of dried thyme, crushed; 1/4 to 1/2 of ground red
pepper; 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper; and 2 tablespoons of
white vinegar. So, I want do first is marinade our
chicken and get it nice and flavorful before we grill
it. So, in a medium bowl, let's put in our
sherry, which I think gives a really elegant twist to
barbecue chicken. We're gonna put in our lemon juice in
there, our bay leaves, garlic, and onion, and that's just
gonna be a lovely marinade for the chicken. Fantastic, so
just give that a little stir. Now, we have some
chicken pieces here. We'd use chicken drumsticks and chicken thighs.
So, just gonna put that on a baking dish here.
Now, once this is in and marinated, we'll put those
in Ziploc bags and into the refrigerator for about 2
to 4 hours. So, let's just get all marinade drizzle
on top of that. Now, we'll transfer this to Ziploc
bags and we'll them in the refrigerator for 2 to
4 hours. So, the chicken was marinating for about 3
hours and now we have drained the sauce from the
chicken and we've let the chicken covered in the refrigerator
until it's ready to grill. So, we have this marinated
sauce left here from the drained chicken and what we're
gonna do in a large saucepan next to us, gonna
get it a to a medium heat and we'll gonna
add in this preserved marinade, and then to this, we're
gonna add in the remainder of our ingredients. So, in
goes our tomato puree into the mix, alright, our molasses
is gonna go in there too, and our honey. So,
those 2 are gonna give a nice sweetness to our
chicken, in there goes, and then we'll add our herbs
and spices to that thyme just give it flavor, the
salt, the pepper, and the red pepper as well, and
it goes beautiful. Alright, let's give that good stir. Oh,
beautiful flavors in there. Now, what we wanna do is
bring that to the boil, so turn off that heat.
Once it starts boiling, we're then gonna reduce the heat
to low, and we're gonna let this simmer for about
30 minutes until the whole thing reduces to about 2
cups. When they reduced it, it will enhance that flavor.
So, after it's brought to the boil, which is now,
we're gonna then reduce the heat and leave it uncovered
for 30 minutes. Alright, so we've taken our saucepan with
the sauce off the heat. It's been on there for
30 minutes, and it's thickened up really beautifully. In fact,
I'm gonna put a little bit in a bowl, so
you can see, and that now has a lot flavor
and we're gonna use most of that to eat with
the chicken and some of it to baste the chicken
when it's grilling, really, really nice. So, we'll sit that
aside and keep your sauce warm. Now, at this point,
we can remove our bay leaves and we can also
stir in that vinegar right up beyond here. So, we'll
stir that in and that is gonna be a great
sauce. So, for our chicken. Now, we've arranged medium hot
colds around a drip pan, and we're gonna place the
chicken. Bone side down on rack on top of the
drip pan. We're gonna cover our chicken and we're gonna
grill those for about 50 to 60 minutes until they
are no longer pink and they are cooked through. Now,
on the last 15 minutes of cooking, make sure, you
get some of our lovely sauce, which we just made
baste our chicken with that sauce just in the last
15 minutes to give that lovely enhanced extra flavor. So,
in about 50 or 60 minutes, the chicken should be
done. So, we've taken our chicken from our of the
grill and they are really nice now. They've been in
there for 50 to 60 minutes. They are crunchy, beautifully
flavored now with that barbecue sauce. Remember, we put it
on for the last 15 minutes of cooking. We slide
it on to some of that sauce that we made
earlier and that now looks fantastic. Serve that nice and
hot at a barbecue with that remaining sauce and you're,
so that's how you make finger licking barbecue chicken.
What You'll Need
- 3 to 4 pounds meaty chicken pieces (breasts, thighs, and drumsticks)
- 1-1/2 cups dry sherry
- 1 cup finely chopped onion
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 2 bay leaves
- 6 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 15-ounce can tomato puree
- 1/4 cup honey
- 3 tablespoons light-flavored molasses
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
- 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 2 tablespoons white vinegar
Step By Step
1
Place chicken in a plastic bag set in a shallow dish. For marinade, in a medium bowl stir together sherry, onion, lemon juice, bay leaves, and garlic. Pour over chicken; seal bag. Marinate in the refrigerator for 2 to 4 hours, turning bag occasionally. Drain chicken, reserving marinade. Cover and chill chicken until ready to grill.
2
For sauce, in a large saucepan combine the reserved marinade, the tomato puree, honey, molasses, salt, thyme, red pepper, and pepper. Bring to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, about 30 minutes or until reduced to 2 cups. Remove from heat; remove bay leaves. Stir in vinegar.
3
For a charcoal grill, arrange medium-hot coals around a drip pan. Test for medium heat above the pan. Place chicken pieces, bone sides down, on grill rack over drip pan. Cover and grill for 50 to 60 minutes or until tender and no longer pink, brushing with some of the sauce during the last 15 minutes of grilling. [For a gas grill, preheat grill. Reduce heat to medium. Adjust for indirect cooking. To serve, reheat and pass the remaining sauce with chicken. Makes 6 servings.
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