After a long day of work, I needed an easy, no-hassle recipe. I needed to be able to do the prep before work, come home, fire up The Forge, grill, eat, and then sit on my couch. The recipe for Mesquite-Roasted Chicken on page 234 seemed to be right up that alley.
Before I left for work, I did what Weber usually has me do: combine the spices to make the rub. Once again, I would like to point out that a good mixing device can be one of the measuring spoons you used in order to cut down on dishes.
Using my favorite poultry shears, I removed the backbone and then cut the bird in half. The rub was then applied to the first side of the chicken.
I flipped the bird over, applied the rub to the other sides, and was pretty much good to go before I left for work.
I covered the chicken halves with Saran Wrap, placed them in the fridge, and went to work. When I returned, I started The Forge and pulled the chicken out of the fridge to get ready for the grill. This recipe had a BBQ sauce to accompany it, so I put what I needed into a saucepan. The recipe doesn't call for heating the sauce, but I like to do so with all of my BBQ sauces as I feel it helps liven the spices.
The bird was on The Forge for over an hour, so I started making the salad that can be found on page 363, the Chilled Cantaloupe Salad With Raspberry Vinaigrette. I had chosen this for two reasons. First, cantaloupes are in season, thus tasty and dirt cheap. Second, The Bride has expressed a negative opinion about cantaloupes, so I took this opportunity of her being out of town to enjoy it without reservations.
What I liked about this recipe is that I got to use a technique with which I wasn't familiar. The first step in the directions was to cut the onion through the root.
Then I cut the halves into half-inch wedges.
The root binds the leaves together, so it had to be removed.
With the root removed, you can now peel apart the leaves.
Here's where it got interesting for me. Weber instructs you to soak the onion leaves in ice water for at least twenty minutes. I had never seen this before. As I thought about it, I recalled seeing a technique used with fresh garlic bulbs where you blanch them in boiling water for just a few seconds in order to remove some of their pungent and unpleasant raw bitter aspects. I know that red onions can have similar problems, so I guessed that this technique would solve them.
Using an ice cream scoop, I removed the seeds from the cantaloupes.
I cut the melon into slices, removed the good stuff, and then began cutting the slices into pieces for the salad.
I sliced the head of romaine cross-wise to give myself ribbons of leaves.
The melon pieces and lettuce went into the salad bowl. Meanwhile, I put the vinaigrette ingredients into my immersion blender container.
Okay, so it's not the most aesthetically pleasant vinaigrette to look at, but I promise you, it's quite tasty.
The chicken halves came off the grill quite crispy, yet very tender.
I drained the onions, added the dressing, and gave the salad a gentle mixing until everything was well-coated.
The chicken was given a light brushing with the sauce for presentation, and the salad completed the plating.
This recipe did exactly what I wanted it to. Fifteen minutes upon coming home, the chicken was on the grill and had enough of a cooking time to allow me to make the side for the meal. It was casual, easy, interesting, and, most importantly, delicious. As mentioned earlier, the chicken was crispy on the outside, but succulent, moist, and tender on the inside. The rub flavored the bird well, but what really drew me in to this recipe was the sauce. As some of you may recall, last summer The Bride and I took a long weekend trip to Memphis for a BBQ Getaway. While Memphis has two rather contrasting styles of BBQ, what was present throughout every restaurant in Memphis was the use of molasses as a sweetener. As this sauce used the same ingredient and similar spices, the overall effect of the sauce was the make the chicken somewhat like what you would find in Memphis. Granted, this is a mesquite-roasted chicken recipe and thus supposed to Texas-style or American Southwest, but hey, I got Memphis out of the deal. In short, I liked it.
The salad was also a nice recipe. I had never tasted raspberry vinegar before, so it was a nice new ingredient to experiment with and use. Perhaps what unified the ingredients in this recipe was the aspect of freshness. Melons are fresh and in season right now, the basil and mint came fresh from my garden, and the raspberry vinegar brightened everything with its fresh acidity. The onions, true to what I thought the cold soak would do, were less abrasive than what they are raw, and instead added crisp texture and a gentle onion flavor that actually complemented the melon well. In short, I liked it.
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