Barbecue Chicken
2 servings
PREP TIME 5 Min
COOK TIME 35 Min
READY IN 40 Min
INGREDIENTS
* 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
* 1/4 cup diced onion
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 5 tablespoons ketchup
* 3 tablespoons honey
* 3 tablespoons brown sugar
* 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
* 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
* salt and pepper to taste
* 2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat grill for medium-high heat.
2. Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Saute onion and garlic until tender. Stir in ketchup, honey, brown sugar, apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper. Cook for a few minutes to thicken sauce. Remove from heat, and allow to cool.
3. Lightly oil the grill grate. Dip chicken in sauce, and turn to coat. Cook on grill for 10 to 15 minutes, turning once. Move chicken to the skillet with sauce. Simmer over medium heat for about 5 minutes on each side.
Bubba Tom’s Eastern North Carolina Style Barbeque
1 5-8 pound Boston Butt Pork Roast — smoked
1 mason jar Apple Cider Vinegar
4 tablespoons Cayenne Pepper Flakes
8 bulbs garlic
—–PAN SAUCE—–
12 ounces Apple Cider Vinegar
2 tablespoons Cayenne Pepper Flakes
1 tablespoon salt
2 cups water
While nothing can duplicate the sweet ambrosia of slow, pit-cooked, whole hog Eastern North Carolina barbeque, this is a right close backyard approximation for those of us who find themselves exiled in distant, heathen regions of barbeque heresy.
First, get yourself some pork shoulders or Boston Butt roasts, as many as your smoker will hold comfortably. I use a Brinkmann Professional Pit Smoker with an offset firebox, but you can do this with a vertical Brinkmann water smoker as well. The key is providing a moist, smoky, indirect heat for a long period of time.
What I do is put a bag of charcoal in the firebox, open the vents, light it, and let it burn down to coals. Then I add wood (generally oak, since hickory is scarce up here)–two parts wet (soaked) wood to one part dry–regulate the dampers, and put the shoulders or butts, fat side up, in the cooking chamber. Beneath the meat I put a drip pan half-filled with apple cider vinegar. You must keep the heat between 180-260 degrees throughout the smoking process; the optimum range is 220-240 degrees. Normally, I’ll add apple wood to the firebox as well, and I always add between 5-7 whole heads of garlic during the process. Keep the firebox fed and a good smoke going for between 8 to 10 hours. Do not open the cooking chamber to baste the meat–the only time you open the cooking chamber is when the temperature spikes above 260 degrees, and you open it only long enough to bring the temperature back in the proper range. By the time the smoking period is finished, the outside of the pork will have a golden amber to dark brown crust.
Now, take the meat and put it in a covered Dutch oven. If it’s too dark outside to continue, preheat your indoor stoves’ oven to just under 300 degrees; otherwise, just raise the temperature in the cooking chamber a like amount. Get a quart-sized Mason jar; fill it halfway with apple cider vinegar, add one (or more) teaspoons of red pepper flakes, and fill the rest of the jar with water. Dump this into the Dutch oven with the pork, cover, and cook until the meat falls from the bone, about 2 more hours or so.
When the meat is done, let it cool a bit.
NOTE: If you’re too tired, you can stop here for the day–cover ‘em up, put them in the fridge, and warm ‘em up the next morning and continue the procedure]. While it’s cooling, fill some 16 ounce bottles with apple cider vinegar, adding about a teaspoon of red pepper flakes to each one (I use Grolsch beer bottles with those pull-down caps, any excuse for buying good beer…). When the pork has cooled enough to handle (I use latex gloves) pull it into thumb-sized chunks, discarding as much fat as possible. Pack roughly 3 pounds of barbeque into a large frying pan (I use a Number 10 size cast iron skillet). Dissolve 1 tablespoon of salt into 2 1/2 cups of warm water and pour it into the pan. Add about 12 ounces of your apple cider vinegar and red pepper sauce, turn the heat to medium, and let the liquid slowly simmer off, stirring frequently, until the sauce just barely oozes over the top of your spatula when you press down on the barbeque with it. Remove from heat, and congratulate yourself–you’ve just made a fine batch of Eastern North Carolina Style Barbeque.
Grilled Pizza
6 Ounces pizza dough (recipe included)
1/4 Cup virgin olive oil for brushing and drizzlin
1/2 Teaspoon fresh garlic — minced
1/2 Cup fontina — shred, loose pack
2 Tablespoons Pecorino-Romano Cheese — freshly grated
6 Tablespoons canned tomatoes in heavy puree — chopped
8 basil leaves
–The Pizza Crust– 1 env active dry yeast — (2 1/2 teaspoons)
1 c warm water
pinch sugar 2 1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 c johnnycake meal <
1/4 c fine ground white corn meal
3 tbsp whole wheat flour
1 tbsp virgin olive oil
2 1/2 c unbleached white flour — more as needed
=20 FOR THE PIZZA CRUST:
Dissolve the yeast in warm water with sugar. After 5 minutes, stir in the salt, johnnycake meal, wheat flour and oil. Gradually add the white flour, stirring with a wooden spoon until a stiff dough has formed.
Empty the dough onto a floured board, and knead it for several minutes, adding enough flour to keep the dough from sticking. When the dough is smooth and shiny, transfer it to a bowl that has been brushed with olive oil. To prevent a skin from forming, brush the top of the dough with additional olive oil, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let the dough rise in a warm place, away from drafts until double in bulk, 1 1/2 to 2= hours.
Punch down the dough and knead once more. Let the dough rise again for about 40 minutes. Punch down the dough. If the dough is sticky, knead in a bit more flour. Dough should be very soft however.
TO ASSEMBLE AND GRILL THE PIZZA:
Prepare a charcoal fire, setting the grill rack 3-4 inches above the coals.
On a large oiled inverted cookie sheet, spread and flatten the pizza dough with your hands into a 10-12 inch free form circle, 1/8 inch thick, do not make a lip. You may achieve a rectangle rather than a circle; the shape is unimportant; do take care to maintain even thickness.
When the fire is medium hot, use your fingertips to gently lift the dough by the two corners closest to you, and drape it onto the grill. Catch the loose edge on the grill first and guide the remaining dough into place over the fire. Within a minute the dough will puff slightly, the underside will stiffen, and grill marks will appear.
Using tongs, immediately flip the crust over, onto the coolest part of the grill. Quickly brush the grilled surface with olive oil. Scatter the garlic and cheeses over the dough and spoon dollops of tomato over the cheese. Do not cover the entire surface of the pizza. Finally, drizzle the pizza with 1/2 tablespoon olive oil.
Slide the pizza back toward the hot coals, but not directly over them. Using tongs, rotate the pizza frequently so that different sections receive high heat; check the underside often to see that it is not burning. The pizza is done when the top is bubbly and the cheese melted, about 6-8 minutes. Serve at once topped with the basil leaves and additional olive oil if desired.=20
NOTE: There are several traps and difficulties that with experience you will overcome. To start, be careful not to stretch the dough so thinly that holes appear. Don’t despair however if small holes do appear. Though you cannot repair them, you can work around them. To avoid flare-ups, do not drizzle any of the oil into the holes.
When you are lifting the dough off the cookie sheet, it will invariably stretch; do not try to compensate for this by moving your hands apart. Work as close to the grill as possible so the dough is without support for a minimum amount of time. If after 8 minutes the cheese has not melted and the topping is not bubbling, either you have been too cautious in your approach to the coals, or you have used too much cheese and topping ingredients. A longer time on the grill will only dry out the pizza and toughen it. The ideal crust should be both chewy and crisp. Do not be timid about the preparation of this pizza. From start to finish, the bold act will reward you with a first rate pizza.