©June
2007
Carol
Jane Remsburg
Chicken BBQ
Grilling holds sacred memories for me. Not all the ones over the last 20 years with hubby, or my sister at her house and all the parties, but BBQ to me invokes memories of the old BBQ grill with my mom and dad and all us kids, when we were little AND grown with hubbies and kids.
BBQ means MOM! BBQ means mom's prep of chicken. (Okay, burgers and dogs were okay and fine, but it was the CHICKEN—that meant all).
Mom prepped it and Dad has special instructions on how to grill it. After decades, the man was trained, he knew.
Thousands, maybe millions of $$ are spent annually at roadside BBQ for chicken. None of these offer that horrendous RED SAUCE commercially offered in grocery stores. NOT ONE! (Thank GOD!)
Grilling can be by propane gas (gag) or by the gods of BBQ (charcoal). I'm currently hampered by a small gas grill, but a good one, a Baby Webber. If you want to grill well with that, you've gotta work it, and hard for just the 'right' flavor.
I've now been promised, finally, before July of this year I'll have a charcoal grill I can use as I want to. But for now, with hubby's recovery, we're still stuck with the little gas grill. And tomorrow I've promised 'grilled wings'.
Really GOOD grilled wings require a FIREMAN'S SAUCE—that particular recipe, most won't share. It's a secret. It's tangy and the meat is half-charred, but it's heaven and hot. The millions who have stopped at those roadside BBQ's know it well, most are American Legion or VFW or some such affiliation, one you can trust to make it right.
BBQ is awesome for chicken and you have to make it right.
You can't find a trustworthy recipe on the internet—trust me, I checked.
But it goes like this for chicken:
CIDER vinegar
Oil—vegetable, peanut, or corn (olive is too fine, don't bother)
A few eggs whipped up
Lots of salt
Pepper
Poultry seasoning
---that's the basics, anything you add to that is on you…
I do add a little
Just keep in mind, more vinegar than oil---1 part oil, 2 parts vinegar.
That oughta cover ya.
Then, it's the grill. Have it hotter than you normally would to grill anything from burgers to dogs. Ensure the chicken has been marinating in that sauce for a few hours, let the vinegar do its job.
Once you slap it on the grill, every 5 minutes or so, drown it in the marinate, enjoy the flames and avoid getting burned. The aroma of the smoke is heavenly. If you don't have one of those 'cotton soppers' be like the rest of us and use two paper towels and squeeze it over the meat—just be careful of the flame-ups.
Cook one side, douse it twice, and keep the lid closed afterwards, flip, douse twice again…flip one more time and douse for a last time. Keep that fire HOT…flames are expected. You'll get better results and flavor with charcoal than with gas, but it can be done.
It hasn't rained here for the last month, but finally today it did. So the grill moved to the garage—and so did I.
So tomorrow, I'm bringing food, the wings, tangy and I'll heat'em up.
It's ALL GOOD.