Caught a random episode of Cooks Country this weekend where they made an unusual barbecued chicken recipe. I tried to replicate it, though I didn’t follow the recipe exactly.
The weird part about the recipe is that the barbecue sauce is mayonnaise based, as opposed to ketchup based, and it was quite tasty. The real recipe has you smoke a chicken cut in half over hickory chips. I used apple wood. The real recipe has you rub the chicken with a mixture of salt, black pepper and cayenne, and let it rest in the fridge for 30 minutes (or up to 8 hours). I don’t use cayenne because the people I feed don’t like the heat of cayenne, so I made a bit of a mix of salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and adobo seasoning.
The sauce is made up of a quarter cup of mayonnaise, what was left over from the spice mixture I didn’t rub on the chicken, and a tablespoon of jarred horseradish.
So you cook the chicken (3 to 4 lbs., cut in half with the backbone removed) over an aluminum pie pan, with a chimney full of fully lit charcoal distributed evenly on either side of the pan, and then the soaked wood chips over top of the coals. I cooked it 45 minutes, skin side up, and then 20 minutes with the flesh side down. Then you remove the chicken and brush the sauce over top.
