HICKORY SMOKED CHICKEN BBQ. COOKING TECHNIQUES- SMOKING AND BROWNING

HICKORY SMOKED CHICKEN BBQ RECIPE
                  AND
COOKING TECHNIQUE:
SMOKING is the process of flavoring, cooking or preserving food  by exposing it to the smoke  from burning or smoldering plant materials, most often wood. Meat and fish, cheeses and vegetables are  the most common smoked foods.


Some traditional smoking wood are alder, oak and beech , hickory, mesquite, pecan, maple, and fruit-tree woods, such as apple, cherry and plum.,, are commonly used for smoking.

Are you always sick of your wild game steaks or fresh fish sticking to your BBQ Grill? If so here is a tip

Slice a potato in half, then, when the grill is hot, rub the cut side back and forth length wise along the grate. You'll hear a hissing sound as starch from the potato coats the metal with a natural non-stick compound.

HICKORY SMOKED CHICKEN BBQ

Ingredients

§  4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

§  3/4 cup salt (if you're concerned, get this: The meat takes just enough from the brine. In the end product, there's less salt than an order of large fries.)

§  2 tbs honey

§  2 cups very hot apple cider vinegar

§  2 pounds ice

§  4 sprigs fresh rosemary, finely chopped

§  10 sprigs fresh thyme, finely chopped

§  1 tbs black peppercorns, cracked

§  1 tbs chili powder

§  1 tbs cayenne pepper

§  2 tbs paprika

§  1 1/2 tsp lemon-pepper

§  Several pounds of large hickory chunks

Procedure

1.  Combine salt, honey, herbs, and vinegar in a gallon-size zip-top bag. Add ice and shake until ice is mostly melted and mixture has cooled enough for meat to safely not cook.

2.  Add chicken and refrigerate 1-2 hours.

3.  Take chicken out of brine and pat dry with paper towels. Set aside.

4.  Combine lemon pepper, peppercorns, chili powder, cayenne pepper, and paprika. Rub mixture gently into both sides of each chicken piece.

5.  Place enough hickory wood chunks into the firebox of a smoker to keep the temperature around 225 degrees F. Insert a probe thermometer into one of the chicken pieces and place in the smoker. Cook, changing chunks as needed, until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees F.

     Remove to a plate and let rest, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Serve warm

PREPARED SMOKED BEEF

COOKING TECHNIQUE:


BROWNING

Browning cannot occur at low temperatures, which is why food that is cooked at boiling point (as in steaming and microwaving) does not brown.

 When the food is exposed to the radiant heat of a grill, the surface rapidly browns and develops an intense, full flavour. 
In foods with a high sugar content, the sugar caramelises, first melting and then deepening in colour, and also creating a rich flavour (this is the same mechanism as the browning of toast.

How to control the degree of cooking

In grilling, the radiated heat is very intense and the surfaces of the food brown rapidly. But there is a big difference between the speed of cooking at the surface and inside the food, and it is important that surface browning occurs at about the same rate as the internal cooking.

In an overhead grill this means adjusting the distance of the food from the heat source and in a charcoal grill you might need to move the food to a cooler area after initial browning.

Otherwise it is easy to end up with food that is either charred on the outside and under-cooked or even quite cold on the inside or completely dried out, tough (even tender meat will toughen in these conditions) and burnt.

 BROWNING ON CHICKEN

In foods such as cakes, meats, nuts and coffee beans, the carbohydrate part of the food reacts with other parts of it and the result is browning. This is sometimes called the Maillard reaction.

Grilled meat acquires a distinctive roast aroma from the Maillard reaction, which only occurs when foods reach temperatures in excess of 155 °C (310 °F).