Let's Talk BBQ Chicken, Can we?

Okay, Memorial Day has passed and Summer is upon us. With it comes beaches, sun, SCUBA, surf, sand, family picnics, baseball, biking, hiking, and everything else outdoors that we luv to do when the weather is beautiful. And what did I leave off the list? Yes, Bar-B-Cue! Good 'ole BBQ.

For those of you, and you know who you are, that can't start a good, 'ole fashioned, BBQ fire to save your life, they invented the gas BBQ so everyone can enjoy cooking outdoors. From fish, to steaks, to ribs and yes, good 'ole BBQ chicken. Like this...

And yes, you're going to have to endure a little story and background before we get to the recipe. I mean, come on, it's free and you get to read a great story, learn a bit of background on it, and look at some onolicious pictures to boot! ('cept for the stealer mongoose, of course)

Ah, yes, BBQ chicken, is the staple to any good picnic or BBQ event. And probably the easiest to cook, provided you can start a fire :) All you need is some chicken parts, a bottle of good BBQ sauce, and you're in, right? Yeah, not so much and not so fast there, my 'lil speedy, stealer mongoose!

Yup, that little rascal took off with a Zippy's fried chicken bone on a recent Maui picnic we stopped for at a waterfall on a day hike. Anyway, back to our BBQ'd chicken. I've always searched for the best bottle of BBQ sauce over the years from the quintessential, mass produced staple to the favorites, like Sweet Baby Ray's, or Tony Roma's. We've even branched out and tried the local brand or the unknown person's who was able to produce some and get it on the local market shelves. 

It wasn't until watching one of my favorite Chefs, Tyler Florence, that I realized, "What the heck am I buying sauce in a bottle for?" I mean, really, you can easily make a great sauce with fresh ingredients, to your own liking and it will be amazingly better than that stuff you have in the back of the refrigerator that's half empty and you need the pliers to get the lid off. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? And then you realize you don't have enough, so you 'hele' (That's local kine speaks for hustle or go) on down to the local store to find they don't have the same kind that you already have so you get a different one and mix 'em up brah! Am I right? Yeah, and now you have more leftover sauce from your BBQ day and you put what you have left into one of the empty bottles, after you made sure the lid was washed and cleaned, and back into the far reaches of the fridge it goes to be used when? Next year? Ha! I know you. Okay, enough of that! Don't do that anymore, okay?

So, recently my lovely cooking and life partner, Dawn, dove into making some homemade BBQ sauce for chicken that we were to make on Memorial Day weekend. My job was the homemade coleslaw from scratch, which you can see ended up on the side. Oh, my scratch coleslaw with carrots and fresh pear is yummy, but it's not the star of this show. We also carved up a fresh seedless watermelon and opened a can of Bushes Grillin' Beans, which I've mentioned in an earlier recipe that I posted. They are great beans, I must say, and you can see here, that we added a little Redondo's sausage, a Hawaiian staple, like Spam, to spice them up a little.

She started from scratch and put together this BBQ sauce that is, believe me, out of this world, fantastic! It is sweet, yet spicy, and has a great little kick in the end. She put this together on her own and I can honestly say it is by far, the BEST BBQ sauce I have ever had. It's one for the books, Baby! And here it is for you to try for yourself: 

BAR-B-CUE CHICKEN AND SAUCE

Let chicken pieces soak at least several hours in mixture of buttermilk with a splash of Tapatio hot sauce (our favorite), black pepper, salt, and lemon juice. 

After soaking, let chicken rest and dry on a rack before BBQing.  Use skin on or off, bone in or boned, whatever's your favorite. This sauce will make it transcend the usual and become memorable.

Halfway through grilling, slather prepared, scrumptious BBQ Sauce all over the chicken

The Sauce:

Over low heat in saucepan mix:
1 cup ketchup
2 TBS Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tsp Tapatio or other hot sauce
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 bunch of fresh thyme - leaves off stem

Stir dry ingredients together before adding to sauce:
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 TBS paprika
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp chili powder

Let all ingredients incorporate into a rich flavorful sauce. It's sticky finger lickin good.

Now, how does that look? Onolicious, eh, brah? Go ahead, feel free to drool at any time, and please remember to wipe the screen to. :)

So, on this Memorial Day, we had a nice Bar-B-Cue with Dawn's sauce and, my beans (not so hard to make, yeah), coleslaw, and fresh cut, seedless watermelon. Pretty dang Memorial Day weekend kind of BBQ, huh? Also, from our garden, we pulled some beets, red onions, and tomatoes.

We would have harvested the mozzarella, but they weren't ready. :) I boiled the beats in water for about 30 minutes and let them cool in the refrigerator. Then we sliced them and added the red onion and tomatoes. We finished it off with a nice balsamic vinegar dressing and it was….awesome! Take a look. 

So, tomorrow is the last day of May and it's also Aloha Friday.  A nice beginning of June weekend is upon us, so why not start it off easy with some onolicious Bar-B-Cue chicken? How does it go? Reach down between your legs n' ease the seat back, put on some Friday afternoon driving music, and stop off at your local market and pick-up some supplies for an awesome beginning to the Summer BBQ season.

Ladies n' Gentlemen, start your Bar-B-Cues! Have a great weekend, and let me know what you think of Dawn's BBQ sauce. TGI 'Aloha' F, Baby!

Mahalo for cooking with Captain Bobby Mitchel

.