My bad-ass smoked dry-rubbed chicken half.
I love smoking meat so much. So little work (especially since 1. I own an electric smoker and 2. my husband LIKES to do it), so much delicious, smoky meat for the effort. Thus far on this blog, you’ve witness me smoke pork shoulder, pork ribs and drums of heaven, all with relative success and deliciousness. Oh, and let’s not forget my epic charcoal-smoked leg of lamb.
So on a recent Sunday, while on the hunt for something to cook for dinner that would provide us with food for a few days, I thought of the humble chicken. I could cut it into halves and slather them in delicious dry rub, then smoke them for three hours or so (for a 3.5 pound chicken). The results would equal some delicious dry-rubbed smoked chicken pieces for dinner, and another half of smoked chicken for us to shred and make into bbq sandwiches, quesadillas, enchildas…mmmm. Done and done.
The Saveur dry-rubbed recipe I swear by. Only I switch out smoked hot paprika.
The prep is fairly straight forward. Make the dry rub listed in the photo above. Have the butcher cut your chicken into two halves when you buy it. Rub the inside and outside of both halves with dry rub until they are completely coated. You can do this one day in advance and let it sit in your fridge, soaking up those flavors, or you can do it 20 minutes before you smoke the chicken. The more time the rub is on the chicken, the more flavor there will be.
We smoked our chicken halves for 3.5 hours, flipping them once, but yours might take longer depending on th size. And in the end, we had this:
Smoked chicken a la Leena, the next best thing to bacon.
I spent a good hour just chewing on the tips of the bones, so crunchy and deliciously crisp. HIGHLY recommend you make this.
~LTG!
