Chicken Thighs with Qview Tonights dinner

[bbally]

Tonight's dinner I was practicing the chicken barbeque for the Havabbq contest in Lake Havasu City, AZ I am entered in the end of the month. Tomorrow I am practicing the St. Louis ribs again.


Found some chicken thighs at Sam's Club while looking for spare ribs to fabricate into St. Louis Ribs. The should do nicely.

They need to marinate for four hours. So after fabricating them with a lot of trimming. Then into the rub and onto the stainless to get happy in the reefer for 4 hours.

A close up of the chicken. I use a dry rub that I let soak up the
fluids naturally.

After four hours in the reefer they come out to meet the charcoal and hickory smoke.

As the thighs get closer to finished I move them to the Weber kettle to put a little char on them to add to the already complex flavors they are offering.

After about 18 minutes on the Weber under my watchful eye they reach
perfectness.

The chicken here is ready to much. It is pink all the way to the bone.
This shows excellent smoke penetration. I did a savory cornbread stuffing and an Asian vegetable medley to finish out the dinner.

And that is how I practice for the havabbq competition.


Chef Bob Ballantyne

 

[cajunsmoke13]

Looks great. Nice. Pass some my way. You made me hungry now.

 

[3montes]

Very nice looks awesome Bob!! I will have to try moving them to the weber. How long did you leave them on the Weber for?
Excellent qview!! Are you still doing game hens for the comp or did you decide against that?

 

[cheech]

Nice job. They look very nice. I like the dry rub, so you do not have any liquid BBQ rubbed on them at all?

 

[dyce51]

the chicken looks great!!!!!

 

[ronp]

Those are picture perfect Bob.

 

[bbally]

18 minutes on the Weber.

I am undecided on the poultry dish for the competition. The skin on my game hens comes out a lot nicer. I jaccard these chick thighs and the skin was still tough as leather.

I am going to buy some whole chickens, skin them back and put the breast skin on the thighs and see if that helps.

 

[bbally]

I use a sticky base to paint them with so the dry rub sticks.

 

[rgacat]

Looks like the complete package to me. Good luck at the comp.

 

[deltadude]

bbally, curious I like the chicken that comes out of my weber kettle, its better than almost anything I do in the smoker. Have you tried, just going straight with the weber kettle. You can smoke and use indirect heat. It will cook faster than in the smoker/kettle method, you should get better control of the skin issue.

 

[bbally]

I will give it a try. I have trouble getting good deep smoke penetration with the kettle only method. But I have not tried to do it in a long time.

 

[rdknb]

looks good and I love cornbread stuffing, good luck at the contest

 

[the dude abides]

Looks great Bob. How was the skin. Was it "bite through" tender. Also what's the white stuff in this picture?

 

[mballi3011]

Now those are some mighty fine looking thighes ther.

 

[bassman]

Those look fantastic, Bob! If you really think you need more practice, give me a call. I can always help dispose of some of your practice results.

 

[bbally]

Nope the skin was crispy, but a little like eating the shell of a football.

I beleive it may be the tyson chickens being used, have order some poulet rouge chickens that have a very thin skin to practice with for the next round.

The white stuff you see is the onion powder I use. It eventually absorbs as they marinate over the four hour reefer time.

 

[beer-b-q]

dang Bob, Those Look Terrific... By the way what is a good way to get drool out of the keyboard...

 

[meateater]

Nice looking thighs.

 

[stiffyman]

Nice job, how long where they in your smoker and what temp did you use?

 

[bbally]

225 F to 250 F in the smoker for 3 hours.