Chicken Ball Experiment... bite through skin.

[pignit]

Red grabbed the stuff to do a chicken ball experiment this evenin. Thing is... she saw some thighs on sale and two packs ended up being deboned and no skin. That left me with only 4 thighs to experiment on with the skin. Went ahead as planned just didn't get to use as many thighs. I did 2 thighs withe the skin side down with butter in the bottom of the pan, then 2 things skin up with butter on top.

Here they are all panned up.

I smoked them in the pans for about an hour and a half.. then pulled them out of the pan, dunked them with BBQ sauce and back on the rack for over another hour. The two on the right here have skin side down with butter on the bottom of the pan.

The two on the far right in this picture had the skin up and butter on top.

Hands down, the thighs smoked with the butter in the bottom of the pan were bite through skin. They were not crunchy but the skin melted in your mouth. The two turned skin side up with the butter on top had skin that couldn't be eaten.

The one on the left is the bite through skin and the one on the right was like bicycle innertube texture.

Honestly it melted in my mouth like pudding. Now, if there is a way to make it bite through and crispy.......????? I've never heard anyone say it was both... I'll have to work on it.

Thanks for checkin out my QVIEW.

 

[rbranstner]

I have been meaning to try these chicken balls in the cup cake pans. Now that I picked up another freezer and have room I will have to start stocking up on meat for the freezer. Just picked up some country style ribs and a Brisket Flat. I can't wait to smoke them. That will be my first brisket.

 

[beer-b-q]

Looks Great Dave, I here Myron is looking for you...

 

[rbranstner]

I see that Myron puts his in the pan skin side down and that seems to follow what you found as well.

 

[pignit]

Yep.... and I ran the MES wide open at 275 the entire smoke. The thighs skin side up had skin that was not even edible. These things are really delicious. I'm sure it's partly all that butter.

 

[chefrob]

nice experiment..........

 

[mballi3011]

Yes thats a neat and novel experiment you did there Dave. So you can only get your Mes up to 275° and no higher or is that temp cause of the cold.?? Man only if you coud get it up alittle higher you might just get that skin the way you want it.

 

[ronp]

Nice Dave, thanks for the experiment and the results I have an idea in my brain that I will share with you.

 

[treegje]

It looks great! Nice job

 

[pike]

that gaves me a good idea;

take a whole chicken and remove the skin, chop up the meat ad some veggys, alittle chicken gravy and fill the skin up and tie i back up and you have a self contained chicken pot pie.

you would have to ring the skin or cut around the legs at the thinnest point an thats the knuckle, and as far up the wing as you can then work your fingers under the skin to free it from the meat, you might have to cut off the wings and the legs at the body so you can pull them out of the skin,

sorry i do taxadermy and i can get really gross LOL