Saturday, June 21, 2008

Did you say "Extra Cripsy?"

Jaden's Roasted Chicken with Sweet Plum Sauce

The day after I read this recipe on Jaden's Steamy Kitchen, I went out and bought a bottle of plum sauce. Today, nearly three months later, I finally got around to trying it, only I did it a little differently, outside on my GrillDome... of course!


I also did mine upright, think beer in the butt chicken without the beer can(I have to agree with Dr. BBQ on this one, see page 140-141 of Dr. BBQ's BIG-TIME BARBECUE COOKBOOK for his theory on Beer Can Chicken).


I have a set of Spanek vertical roasters, which work very well. Instead of stuffing the cavity of the chicken, I put the lemon quarters, onions and spices in a water pan under the chicken. As you can see from the pictures, I should have heeded Jaden's warning a little more seriously about covering the bird with foil if the skin starts to get a little... extra crispy! When I Opened the Dome to check on the bird about 40 minutes into the cook it was already well caramelized on the top. I guess the top of the bird was much closer to the Dome-lid ceramics than I realized. I covered it with foil then. (Better late then never.)


Not to worry though, I brushed it with the plum sauce a few times in the last few minutes and let it rest under a tent of foil while still sitting in the pan, on the stand. All in all, no more then 90 minutes start to finish for an average size bird.


It went very well with some curried couscous and since we are not much of a "skin" eating family there was no problem with the "extra crispy" parts. I will certainly do this one again (probably tomorrow as I bought a double pack of roasters at Costco and still have the other one in the fridge!)



Thanks again Jaden!

2 comments:

SteamyKitchen said...

great! did you use the extra sauce for dipping?

ok - another trick that I've not yet posted: salt your chicken like normal and leave it overnight in fridge.

if you don't have overnight - then salt heavy - for a few hours, when ready to cook, use paper towels and pat the chicken really super dry (wiping off the extra salt) and then coat with the sweet plum sauce.

The salting for long periods of time will create the most amazingly moist meat ever. the meat is nicely seasoned throughout.

If you have Judy Roger's Zuni Cafe book, you'll see that her famous roast chicken is salted. (Actually just google her)

xo, j

ejs said...

Hi Jaden, thanks for stopping by. I did use some sauce at the table (if you look really closely at the plate you can see a little at the top).

Funny, I used to think "salt kills!" but since getting into BBQ in a big way I use "rubs" and injections all the time now. Usually done the night before the cook.

It's amazing how much liquid a good salt cure can bring out of Salmon!