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.
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!
