Honay Mustard Chicken

So, I hope ya'll had a great 4th of July weekend! I had the distinct pleasure of being able not only to attend the wedding of my friend Jeanne and her husband Phillip but to be the principal photographer!! It was a great way to spend the day and I had a wonderful time shooting some happy people

So I was browsing through the naked wiz's Big Green Egg page when I ran across a recipe (from a woman named Cat) for honey mustard chicken. The lineup included:
Some olive oil, honay, salt, pepper, soy sauce and my addition...some lemon thyme that I bough from the Natick Organic farm. Mmmm...lemon thyme. Basically the ratio was 3 TBS Mustard, 1 TBS Honay, 1 TSP Soy Sauce, Salt/Pepper and some Thyme. Whisk it all up and you've got your sauce:
Now I now that raw meat isn't where ya'll are at for blog viewing raw meat...but what I did was to put the honey mustard sauce on top of the chicken and let it come to room temperature for about an hour. A few hours beforehand, I had thrown some applewood chips in with some water to soak. At the last minute, right before putting the chicken on the grill I dropped the smokewood on
Looks pretty good, eh? Now, this brings up an interesting point...I've discovered that the dome temperature is about 30 degrees less than what the temp is on the grill. I set the grill for 300 dome temperature and cooked for about 55 minutes. Admittedly I started making this dish a little late...so to actually have dinner in a reasonable time I made a crab/avocado salad with roast red peppers.
Now, I have neglected to mentioned that the one thing thing that I tried which was that I spatchcok'ed the chicken!! I had a bit of experience with this when I made a duck for thanksgiving. So..after 55 minutes, flip the chicken and give it another 30 minutes to crisp up the skin
What came out was SOOO damn good! Seriously...I love rotisserie chicken and this was just about as close as I've ever tasted to that. I'd love to make this again with perhaps some garlic!! mmm...garlic! Though I had already eaten dinner, I had to have a leg...just to try. It reminded me of my Dad who always had a left over Turkay leg the day after Thanksgiving :)

FINISHED!!!
*****************Sweet Music********************
Deadsy-The Key to Gramercy Park

Rubin' some Chicks

Now...when using Natural Lump Charcoal, I've learned that it is VERY important to not just light the grill but to let it get up to temperature before I even think about putting meat or anything else on it. A couple times before I was so enlightened, I would put meat on the grill while blue/white smoke was still coming out the top. These are the impurities that the natural charcoal is burning off...so wait until the only thing coming out the top of your grill is HEAT! :D

So, I know from past experience that blog folks don't dig seeing raw meat so I didn't take any pix of the chicken prior to prepping. But here's a semi-wet rub that I created....take some concentrated tomato puree, add some Chipotle puree (about 1/3 as much relative to the tomato paste), dark brown sugar, salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder. Let that sit for a little while to blend then added it to some chicken thighs to give some flavor. Now...most people (including myself when I don't have tons of time) cook thighs at around 350 'till done. What I did in this situation was to cook 'em low (200 degrees) and slow (3 hours). I hit it with soem reserved glaze from time to time but not too often...remember..."if you are lookin' you ain't cookin'". What came out I have to say was pretty damn yummy:

Little sweet...little spicay and really tender. I'd totally recommend the slow/low thighs if you haven't done it. Now...just so you can see what Boston has been up to last week.....I got outta work last Thursday at lunch to go see the Celtics celebrate their 17th championship:

The crowds were outta control, but it was really nice to be able to get out and enjoy a really nice day out with some nutty but fun sports fans. I know that people around here have been waiting since 1986 to celebrate a championship and as I was one of the kids walkin' around in the 6th grade with a Celtics cap, I had to smile and enjoy the moment.


**********GROOVY SLOW/LOW MUSIC****************

The Stills - Still in Love