Tag: #bbq

Grilled Chicken with Mexican Marinade

If I can find a good Carniceria or Grocery with high quality marinated chicken using a recipe like this – I’m buying!  But it’s not hard at all to make your own, and you will like the results.

Ingredients

4 Chicken Breasts, Boned and Skinned or 8 boneless chicken thights
¾ cup Olive Oil
¾ cup Orange Juice (Juice from 2 oranges is even better!)
3 Limes, Juiced
3 Lemons, Juiced
2 tbsp Paprika
8 Cloves Garlic, Crushed (or 2 tsp minced dried garlic)
2 tsp Cumin
2 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Salt
1 Onion, chopped1 large or 2 small

Directions

Mix all marinade ingredients together. Set aside 1/3 of the mixture to use after the chicken is done.

Marinate chicken in remaining marinade (with the fruit rinds!) for at least 1 hour. Overnight is excellent. A good ziplock bag works here.

Remove chicken from marinade. Drain. (You can get flame-ups if you don’t drain before placing on the grill. I learned that the hard way.)

Cook chicken on a hot grill. Turn at least four times to get good grill marks on both sides. Take off the grill as soon as the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees (breasts) or 175 for thighs.

Plate the chicken or place it in some kind of dish, spoon the reserved marinade over it, and cover with foil until you are ready to serve. It will hold for 20-30 minutes. As always, for safety, don’t let the temperature drop below 140 degrees.

Arkibu BBQ Rub

You’ve got to have a good rub for your bbq. Here’s my Arkibu Rub. I use it on almost everything I smoke. If I’m smoking ribs, I will rub in some brown sugar first, then add the rub.

Ingredients

1.50 cups Smoked Paprika (I use Penzey’s Smoked Paprika)
½ cup Black Pepper (Course)
½ cup Kosher Salt
½ cup White Sugar
¼ cup Chili Powder (Medium)
¼ cup Garlic Powder
¼ cup Onion Powder
1 tbsp Cayenne PepperThis keeps it fairly mild. You make it 1/4 cup to add more heat to this rub.

Directions

Mix it up and Store in a cool dry place. This is a “medium heat” recipe. Add more cayenne if you want some real fire!

Pulled Pork

Pulled Pork – The greatest BBQ food there is. You can make it perfectly every time with a good piece of meat, a smoker, some rub, and a meat thermometer! Pork Shoulders (also called Pork Butts?) are not small, so this is not a family dinner. This is a dinner/bbq with friends. I’ve made it for 8 people, and I’ve made for 100. As long as you have room on your smoker, there’s not much difference in effort. If you don’t have a smoker, there are a zillion great crockpot recipes out there, so don’t let that stop you.

Ingredients

1 Boston Butt (Pork Shoulder) Bone-In (Preferred) or Boneless, 10-14 pounds
½ cup BBQ Rub

Directions

Preparation

If using a boneless pork shoulder (aka Boston Butt), tie it up with twine, widthwise and lengthwise.

Seasons with at least 1/2 dry rub. Buy one you like at a store or use my Arkibu rub recipe. Cover every inch of the meat. Use your hands, and feel free to use some plastic gloves to keep everything clean.

Place in a pan and cover, or cover with plastic wrap or foil. I like to let it sit for at least 12 hours.

Smoking that Bad Boy

Prepare your Big Green Egg or other smoker. Stabilize it at 300 degrees of indirect heat.

Soak some apple wood chips or the chips of your choice. Subtle is better here. You only need to add smoke for the first part of the recipe. The smoker will do the rest.

Put the pork on the smoker and close it up. If you have a thermometer that you can keep an eye on the temperature with, insert that now.

Now you wait.

It’s going to be 5 to 7 hours, because nothing is exactly predictable. What is predictable is that 195 degrees is perfect, and take it off the egg once it’s there.

Take it off the egg, place on a large rimmed cookie sheet, one of those great disposable foil pans (pictured), or other pan, and cover tightly with foil for at least one hour.

You can keep ready to go for about six hours by putting the foil-wrapped pieces in  a high quality cooler, covering them with a towel, and closing the cooler.  I’ve had it sit in foil in a cooler for 7 hours, and it was still hot and ready to pull when I opened it up.

When you are ready to pull it, take the foil off and pull apart.  I use the bear claw tools that are helpful.  Some people just use forks.  

Don’t mix in BBQ sauce. It’s too good for that. But serve with BBQ sauce in a bowl or a squeeze bottle for people to use.

If you need to reheat it after refrigerating the pulled pork, put it in an oven at very low heat (200) with a little apple juice, or, my method is to put a little apple juice at the bottom of a large crock pot and heat it up there.