BBQ Chicken Thighs

The USDA says that chicken should be cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees.  Meat thermometer manufacturers tell you to test the temperature at the thickest part of the meat without touching the bone.  Problem is, the part that cooks last on a chicken thigh is the part right next to the bone.  In the past, when I’ve tried cooking chicken to 165 degrees at the thickest part, I still end up with blood around the bone.  This doesn’t make me very happy.  All that work and it’s not done!

Being tired of seeing blood in my BBQ chicken, I decided to over cook them this time, then adjust backwards from here til I get it right.  I’m going to cook them to 180 degrees and see how it turns out.

Picked up some chicken thighs at the grocery store and let them thaw overnight in the refrigerator.

The next day, I removed one of the grill grates so we can cook at a lower temperature.

Salt and pepper both sides of chicken.

Preheat the grill, then reduce heat to as low as it will go, around 300 degrees.

Place the chicken thigs skin side down on grill grates.

After 10 minutes, sauce the side facing up, close grill for 2 mins.

Open grill, flip chicken onto an empty spot on the grill and wait for any fast flare ups to die down.  There is usually a bit of grease that has accumulated on the top while cooking which is why we want to flip them to an empty spot so the grease goes over there and not where we are going to continue cooking.

Move them back to wherever you’re cooking them.

Sauce the other side, then close the grill and wait 10 minutes.

Sauce again.

Increase heat slightly and wait til temp hits 180.  Test with a meat thermometer at the thickest part of the thigh.

Sauce again, close grill for 1 min, then remove from grill.

Fully cooked but not quite as moist as I’d like.  I think next time I’ll try 175 degrees instead.

First Red Snapper

We have an international grocery store near us called Global Food.  We’ve been going there for quite a while and have always looked at the section where they have whole fish but didn’t really want to have to clean the fish ourselves.  Turns out we don’t have to!  You pick out the fish you want, put it in a basket, and hand it to the people behind the counter.  They weigh the fish, print the label for how much it weighed and how much it cost, then ask you how you’d like it cleaned.  Sweet!  Since we didn’t have to clean it (yes, we’re lazy sometimes), we decided to try Red Snapper.  We got two decent sized Red Snapper and had them scale them, gut them, and clip the tails, but leave the heads on.

Note: All the credit for this one goes to my wife.  All I did was eat it.  She had everything done but pulling it off the grill by the time I got home but I had her explain to me what she did so I could share it here (and so we could refer back to it later, it was GOOD!)

• Open up the cavity of the fish (where the guts were) and salt and pepper the inside.
• Take a knife and score both sides of the fish with a knife.  This just means cut two or three slits diagonally along the body part of the fish
• Inside the cavity, fold a green onion in half, add two sprigs of rosemary and four sprigs of parsley.
• Then add a couple tablespoons of mixed vegetables: leeks, celery, shaved carrots (sliced really then lengthwise), and green onions inside the cavity.   Exact measurements aren’t needed.
• Tie the fish up with cooking twine so the stuff you just put into the cavity doesn’t come falling out when you flip the fish later.
• Generously sprinkle kosher salt and pepper and drizzle olive oil on the outside of both sides of the fish.
• Preheat the grill on high (about 10-15 minutes)
• Put the fish on the grill , then add a green onion lengthwise on top of the fish.  Add two orange slices on top of the green onion.  Do this to each fish.
• Leave the heat on high, close the lid, and cook for 10 minutes or until the fish releases from the grill.
• Once the fish releases, remove the orange slices and green onion from each fish with tongs, flip the fish over, then add the green onion and orange slices back on top of each fish.
• With the lid closed, grill for another 10 minutes or until the fish releases.
• Remove the fish from the grill and serve whole on a plate.

There were some small bones right near the gills which happens to be where we started eating.  We were thinking that we were in for a battle of picking bones out out of the fish.  As we moved away from the gills though, towards the tail, there weren’t any more bones except those connected to the spine.  It was very easy to pick the meat off with a fork and was really tasty.  We had never had Red Snapper before but after this, we’re certainly going to have it again.

This was also the first try with the new Grill Grates.  The fish ended up being really moist and not dry at all.  The grill grate tool (my wife calls it a pitch-fork) worked really well in flipping the fish and removing them from the grill when done.

Result: Very tasty flavorful fish.

Grill Grates

Been loving that infra-red cooking that the Big Easy Electric Smoker Roaster Grill does so much that decided to try it out on the grill itself.  There is a company that sells these things that go over top of your existing grill that turns any grill into an infra-red grill.  They’re called Grill Grates.

The concept is basically that the grates heat up and transfer the heat using infra-red.  This is supposed to cook more evenly and eliminate flare ups.  I measured my grill, did the math (wrong), and ordered five of them.  They’re basically 5 inches wide and come in a 2 panel starter pack and one panel add on’s.  Since my grill is about 30 inches wide, I needed the starter pack (5+5) plus three of the add on’s (5+5+5).  Right?  5+5+5+5+5=30 doesn’t it?  No, it certainly does not.  (sigh).  But the good news is, you can use them even if they don’t fit.  But I still want one more.

Here’s the grill before:

And after:

And here’s after I put some vegetable oil on them with a washcloth and turned the grill on high for about 20 minutes to season them a bit:

I’ll be sure to post once I’ve cooked something other than vegetable oil on them.