Chicks and Bricks

The Bride is out of town...time to start playing!  I can (tentatively) grill for the next six days in a row!  I have the first couple of days mapped out, and tonight it would be something that I have been wanting to try for quite some time.  I've seen this done on several cooking shows, and now it was my turn...for Chicken Under Bricks on page 234.  I actually started this last night before bed when I prepped the bird and marinade.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at school, so I only have the picture of what I took out of the fridge when I got home from school today.

Since I don't reveal exact recipes (don't know how Weber would feel about this) I will only tell you that the marinade has garlic, whole grain mustard, thyme, rosemary, white pepper, lemon juice, and olive oil.  The only substitution I made was using dried thyme for fresh, as the grocery store was out and my thyme plant in my garden is still too small. 

Perhaps it was fortunate, after all, that I did not have my camera.  I've broken down a whole chicken before, but I've never had to use kitchen shears to remove a backbone.  It was a little unpleasant.  Upon removing the backbone, I then flipped the bird and cut it in half by shearing along one side of the breastplate.  Again, it was unpleasant.  Applying the rub was easy, and I set the bird in a gallon-sized Ziploc bag in the fridge before bed, and the picture above is about eighteen hours later.

For a side I went with Brown Rice Salad with Lime Dressing on page 369.  I was nervous about the quantity this would make as I know that brown rice swells to about three times its dry size, and this recipe called for one and half cups of dry brown rice, but leftovers are always awesome, so here we go!

I started the rice, as it takes almost an hour to cook, and then set up The Forge for medium indirect heat.  From there, I wrapped the bricks in foil, and because I am a geek, I learned that I was going to use a little over six and a half pounds of bricks. 

First, I applied the chicken halves skin side down:

Then applied the weights:

After about half an hour to forty minutes, I flipped the chicken over to direct medium to crisp up the side that had been in contact with the baking sheet (looking good, I must say):

During this time I was also making the dressing for the rice salad.  I pulled the chicken off the grill to rest while I applied the dressing to the rice. 

Finally, it was time to plate:

Overall, I was very pleased.  The chicken is excellent, especially if you like rosemary.  It was definitely heavy on that herb, so scale back if you know you don't prefer it.  The chicken was certainly slanting towards Italian in flavor. 

Let me just take a moment to describe how juicy and succulent this was...AMAZING!  Chicken can dry out quickly, but between the marinade, the indirect heat, and the baking sheet, this was nowhere near an issue.  The meat fell off the bone and dripped juices everywhere. 

The rice was also rather delicious.  My only complaint was that it leans heavily towards an Asian flavor profile, which didn't exactly jive with the Italian influenced chicken.  Individually, these dishes are keepers, but I won't put them together again.  The texture of the salad receives high scores.  Adding peanuts to rice salad sounded a little odd at first, but the more I thought about it, I really like the peanuts that are added to Phat Thai noodle dishes. 

Perhaps what I am most excited about is learning a new technique.  In general, I am more interested in learning techniques that I can apply and modify than I am learning recipes, and this is a new technique that has a vast array of applications...even if I have to remove more backbones.  For now, though, I am going to enjoy two things:  my full belly and the Penguins/Canadiens Game 3.