Smoked Half Chickens
Serves 2I have made it very clear that I ate lots of hog when I was growing up and very little of other meats—chicken and brisket both included. If I saw chicken that wasn’t fried when I was a kid, it was made in the following fashion. That’s because my dad loved to make half chickens, so I’m going to give you his method for that—that’s what he sold for take-out in his barbecue business and what I saw him cooking when I was coming up.
Ingrediënten
- 1 3½- to 4-pound whole chicken
- 1 recipe brine
- ½ cup Jack’s Old South Huney Muney Cluck Rub or make your own
- ¼ cup white vinegar
- Kosher salt to taste
- Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Instructies
- We buy whole chickens, local ones, and then we split them ourselves (see this page).
- First, remove the neck and giblets.
- Place the chicken on a cutting board, breast side down.
- Using a very sharp kitchen knife, cleaver, or sharp kitchen shears and working from the cavity opening to the neck, cut down the backbone of each side of the chicken; discard the backbone.
- Next, cut a two-inch slit through the membrane and cartilage at the “V” of the neck end.
- Grab a breast in each hand and gently bend both sides backward, as if you were opening a book, to snap the breastbone.
- Use your fingers to work along both sides of the breastbone to loosen the triangular keel bone; pull out the bone.
- With the tip of a sharp knife, cut along both sides of the cartilage at the end of the breast-bone; remove the cartilage.
- Turn the chicken breast side up.
- The final step: Cut lengthwise down the center of the chicken to split it into two halves.
- The chicken halves should be brined at least 4 hours, or preferably overnight (see this page for brine recipe), in gallon-size zip-top bags.
- When ready to cook, remove the chicken halves from the brine.
- Pat the halves down with paper towels or a clean dry kitchen towel.
- Rub each chicken half inside and out, skin and cavity, with white vinegar.
- Then season them thoroughly all over with salt and pepper—take your time to season the chicken well.
- Preheat a smoker to 250°F.
- Place the chicken, breast side up, in a deep aluminum pan.
- Place the pan in the smoker and cook for 90 minutes, or until the breast meat reaches 165°F on an instant-read thermometer.
- At the 90-minute mark, take a look at the chicken skin.
- Push down on the skin with your finger and see if the push leaves a dimple.
- If that happens, you’re on the way to being done.
- The final check for doneness is to grab that chicken leg and gently twist it, and if it pulls away, then it is ready to go.
- Remove the chicken halves from the smoker and allow to rest uncovered in the pan for 15 minutes.
- Then serve your birds—I give a half chicken per person.
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