It was a big weekend of cooking in my household, no particular reason other than to stave off boredom and it is something we both enjoy!
Our local university has it's own dairy that sells meat, eggs, cheese, and ice cream. We love supporting it whenever we can, and snatched up a couple whole chickens a few weeks back. I thawed the last one out for a smoke bath, and this thing was massive! I'm thinking it was about 8 lbs. from what I recall the label saying.
I let it thaw in the fridge for a couple of days, then opened it up and gave it a generous rub with Meat Church's Holy Voodoo. It's a creole style rub that I had never used, but I love Meat Church rubs so I gave it a shot. I let it dry out seasoned and uncovered in the fridge overnight before smoking on Sunday.
Smoked on my Camp Chef with Comp Blend pellets at 375 to start, but the skin was browning too fast so I cut it down to 325 and panned the chicken on a rack after the bottom got a good crust. About 1.5 hours later, I had a gorgeous, brown, crispy bird. 15 minutes resting on the counter seemed to take forever, but it was worth the wait! Served it the first night on homemade naan with garlic aioli and some grilled veg (in addition to eating about a pound of it off the board while carving
). Outstanding!
Now for the bonus pics! We got a couple ribeyes from the university too, and added a couple more from a local steakhouse that is selling their raw beef during the pandemic. Grilled one of each for a ribeye taste test. There were no losers, but the steakhouse ribeye won! Both were sous vide at 123 for an hour, then quick seared over a charcoal chimney to finish. No pics of the sliced up version, it didn't last long enough!
Our local university has it's own dairy that sells meat, eggs, cheese, and ice cream. We love supporting it whenever we can, and snatched up a couple whole chickens a few weeks back. I thawed the last one out for a smoke bath, and this thing was massive! I'm thinking it was about 8 lbs. from what I recall the label saying.
I let it thaw in the fridge for a couple of days, then opened it up and gave it a generous rub with Meat Church's Holy Voodoo. It's a creole style rub that I had never used, but I love Meat Church rubs so I gave it a shot. I let it dry out seasoned and uncovered in the fridge overnight before smoking on Sunday.
Smoked on my Camp Chef with Comp Blend pellets at 375 to start, but the skin was browning too fast so I cut it down to 325 and panned the chicken on a rack after the bottom got a good crust. About 1.5 hours later, I had a gorgeous, brown, crispy bird. 15 minutes resting on the counter seemed to take forever, but it was worth the wait! Served it the first night on homemade naan with garlic aioli and some grilled veg (in addition to eating about a pound of it off the board while carving
). Outstanding!
Now for the bonus pics! We got a couple ribeyes from the university too, and added a couple more from a local steakhouse that is selling their raw beef during the pandemic. Grilled one of each for a ribeye taste test. There were no losers, but the steakhouse ribeye won! Both were sous vide at 123 for an hour, then quick seared over a charcoal chimney to finish. No pics of the sliced up version, it didn't last long enough!
