Monday, August 29, 2011

Rotisserie Chicken

When I first saw Josh Bazar's new BBQ last spring - he was all excited about this "infrared burner" at the back for his rotisserie. At the time, I had no idea what he was talking about, but I played along; nodded my head and said something supportive like: "cool, man."

Within a month - I had a new BBQ with one of these "infrared" things; and still, when the sales guy started talking about it I just nodded, said something smart like "uh-hunh,"  and pretended I knew what the big fuss was about.

Little did I know, but this tiny little device would completely change my life for the better. I've never been a huge fan of Rotisserie chicken, and living in Quebec, it's hard to throw a rock and not hit either a Catholic church, a Couche-Tard or some kind of chicken place.Today I bought a chicken for 5$, some potatoes and onions, a lemon and some fresh spices on my way home from work. An hour and a half later I had roasted some potatoes, a whole head of garlic, a golden brown chicken, &&& I made a gravy. It was almost too easy!

Ted's Tip of the Week:

Your BBQ is essentially an oven - and anything you can do in an oven, you can do on the BBQ. So learn to play with it! The first time I made a rotisserie chicken with the infrared, I just let the drippings go; but this time, I put some onions and potatoes below it in a pan, just like you would if you were roasting a chicken in an oven. It caught the juices beautifully and I managed to pull off a semi-decent gravy to go with some pretty tasty potatoes.

Rotisserie Chicken (p.208)

1/4 cup Orange juice
1/4 cup soya sauce
1/4 cup fresh lemon or lime juice
1 Tbsp sesame oil
Cilantro/Coriander - Fresh & chopped
3-4 garlic cloves, crushed
Salt & Pepper

Put the whole chicken in a Ziploc bag, and add the marinade. Try to let it sit for a few hours if you can, but my chicken wasn't fully defrosted yet, so I just let it continue defrosting while it sat in the marinade. Another couple hours and it was perfect. Then I stuffed 3 lemon quarters and some fresh rosemary into the cavity, tied the legs and wings up and mounted it on the rotisserie.

Perfect rotisserie temperature is 350 degrees F- and if you have an infrared burner, you may have to play with the valve on your tank a bit to get the right temp. 1 hour 15 minutes is about right, but use a meat thermometer just in case - the internal temp should be 180 degrees F. If it's burning too much for your tastes, you can cover it with tinfoil, but personally, I like it crispy!


That's right kiddies! I made GRAVY.


Another satisfied belly.


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