For the trial run of my new (to me) Kamado Oven, I decided to make some Smoked Chicken, keeping in line with my love of Homestyle Cooking.
For Father’s Day my awesome wife got me a Kamado Oven (I’ll be doing a blog about this baby in the future!). After my adventures with making a Smoked Pork Butt I’ve been bitten by the smoking bug. So for my initial run in the new toy I went with smoked chickens.
I made a marinade with onions, garlic, vinegar, fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper, rosemary, and some oregano. I rubbed it under the skin on the breasts and legs, and all around inside the cavity.
While I gave the chickens some time to soak in the flavor, I got the Kamado ready to go. I lit the charcoal and adjusted the damper and air intake so it would hold a nice 250 degrees. I went with a hickory smoke on these babies and got the chips ready while the Kamado was heating up.
On went the chickens:
3 hours later a thermometer inserted into the breast read 170 degrees so I pulled them off and tented them for 10 minutes with foil.
They came out awesome in my book but the feelings seemed to run along gender lines as the ladies felt the smoke was a bit strong. I’ll have to work on this one a bit.
Affiliate Disclosure: I am grateful to be of service and bring you content free of charge. In order to do this, please note that when you click links and purchase items, in most (not all) cases I will receive a referral commission. Your support in purchasing through these links enables me to keep the content train rolling
Those chickens look delicious! I do so much home cooking but have not tried my hand at smoking yet. I’d love to hear how you have perfected the recipe. I also wanted to tell you I nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award. Check it out! http://www.beverlybees.com/versatile-blogger-award
Why did you tie the chickens up? Did you think they were going to fly away? A common misconception of smoking is that “smoking is cooking” and “cooking is smoking”. However the truth is smoking adds tenderness and flavor to the meat, and slightly cooks it in the process, and as we all know, cooking alone does not add flavor to food, or meat. So the two are mutually exclusive, but work best together, if that makes any sense. For example, you may season or marinate, chicken or steak, overnight, but you certainly wouldn’t cook it that way. With these thoughts in mind, and remembering that you smoke to flavor, not smoke to cook, you should be fine. One last thing, with any new appliance comes a learning curve, just as you know your stoves “hot” and “cold” spots, and instinctively know how long it would take to bake a cake, or roast a chicken, the same must be learned on your new smoker. As with most things experience is the best teacher, with more use the better you’ll become at understanding you smokers nuances, and the better product you will have in the end. Good luck.
Great comment! I never knew you had it in you!