The best chicken you have ever had?

[SeaCat]

What is the best Chicken you have ever had?

For me it was at a cook out held by my Fire Department.

My department had been advertising a Chicken Cook Out for a couple of weeks prior. This was to raise money for the department. We did this every year and I had been volunteering for it every year. I was looking forward to it.

A week before the cook out my chief called me and told me things were falling apart. The expected grills weren't being promised and the guy who usually cooked wasn't going to be in town. He was in trouble and wanted my help. I told him I would help but he needed to allow me free reign. He readily agreed to this.

The next day I was out behind the station with several others and the chief. We dug a nice deep pit and lined it with Cinder Blocks. We built this up until it stood two feet off the ground. We're talking a pit three feet deep by three feet wide and ten feet long. The chief just looked at it and shook his head.

I called some friends and had wood delivered by the pick-up load. Hickory and Maple. I cut it and split it then stacked it near the pit. I continued working on the pit. I found some fencing and put it in place then built the pt up another foot above this. The chief shook his head. Who knows what a Redneck is going to make?

I did some shopping and picked up what I needed. Bags of Garlic and Oniuons and Chilis.

The day before the cookout the chickens arrived and I was ready. I had set up several stoves and placed stock pots on each burner. I added water to each pot along with chopped Onions, Salt, Garlic and crushed Peppers. A short crew helped me open the bags of split chickens and toss them into the pots to boil for a bit. We're talking well over two hundred pounds of Chicken.

As each chicken half was pulled from the water they were hit with a dusting of the same mix of Garlic, Onion and Ancho's before being placed in the fridges. You could smell this for miles around.

The morning of the cook out I was at the station early. I lined the bottom of the pit with wood and lit it up. I let it burn down to coals then added some wet wood. Above this I placed the chicken on the home made racks then put covers made of old car hoods over the pit. (It's amazing just how many split chickens you can cook on a three foot wide by ten foot long rack.)

Other people were showing up with the sides as the tables were set up. We had Slaw and Mac and Cheese. We had Potatoe Salad and cold sodas.

People started showing up and paying their five bucks for their chicken meal. The chief was standing there in uniform looking over at me in my jeans and department T-Shirt and worrying. He didn't know what to expect.

I pulled the first hood off and we yanked the rack of chicken out of the smoke. Others pulled the chicken off the rack as I added more wet wood to the coals beneath. When they had cleared the rack we reloaded it and put it back in place.

I was in charge of the pit and I was busy. As soon as a rack was ready it was pulled, cleared then reloaded and put back in place with fresh wet wood beneath it. Others served the chicken as I stood in the smoke and sucked down cold water.

By the end of the day we had gone through four hundred pounds of chicken and people were asking for more. (I did manage to get my hands on some of the chicken, but not enough to satisfy my hunger.)

That was some of the best chicken I have ever made.

Cat

Oh, the department still makes chicken for their annual chiken dinners that way.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Prawns (or Chicken) Mozambique

________________________________________
This is a California-fusion version of the Prawn/Chicken dinner famous in Mozambique.

Take the largest size prawns (shrimp) you can get, like those 8-to-the-pound monsters, and butterfly them down the back. Grill them on the barbecue with very garlicky butter then serve with the following, oven-fried potatoes, a big green salad and lots and lots of cold beer.

Bwana Walt’s Safari Hot Sauce
“The Heat of Africa”

3 fresh long red Holland or Cayenne peppers
2 fresh habanera peppers
juice of one lemon or two limes
1 cup canned coconut milk
¼ cup fresh cilantro
½ tsp salt
½ tsp sugar
½ tsp soy sauce
2 Tbs. Peanut oil

With rubber gloves, cut the peppers into quarters lengthwise and remove the seeds and internal ribs. Put them into a small saucepan with the lemon/lime juice, COVER and bring to a boil. AT ARM’S LENGTH pour the peppers and juice into a blender, add the coconut milk, cilantro, sugar, soy sauce and the salt and liquefy TIGHTLY COVERED. Let cool. Use half the mixture as a marinade for game birds or chicken (marinate 1-2 hrs. in the refrigerator) or shellfish (1/2 hr.). Add the oil to the remainder and use as a basting sauce while barbecuing. Serve over piles of sticky rice and use the basting sauce to flavor the rice . . . carefully.

Note: I know that the ingredients look horrendous but the coconut milk modifies the fire of the peppers considerably. Still, this is no sauce for the weak at heart or tender of stomach. We love it!

 

[Trinique_Fire]

I haven't had it, but my mother swears by it as her dirty little indulgence.

Harold's Chicken Shack. Sounds seedy, but they're revered here in Chi-town.

 

[TE999]

Our landlady in Clarkston, Georgia made the best fried chicken I have ever sunk a tooth into...she had her own recipie which she said she'd give us and never did. She passed on after we'd moved. That chicken was marvelous. Wayyy better than any of the fast foods.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I've lived in the South all my life and havent tasted better fried chicken than CHURCH'S. I may have had some a little better, back in 1954, but it was a long time ago.

 

[Trinique_Fire]

I've lived in the South all my life and havent tasted better fried chicken than CHURCH'S. I may have had some a little better, back in 1954, but it was a long time ago.

Food had a different, more carefree quality back then.

 

[mythtrav16]

I realize I'm probably going to be blasted as a philistine for saying this, but...

Kentucky Fried.

Seriously.

One time, when I was learning Japanese, we had a chicken dish called yakitori and that would rank second for me (maybe if it hadn't been cooked by ametuers like us it might have been number one), but Kentucky Fried is still the best for me.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Food had a different, more carefree quality back then.

I think ingredients were different back then. No one uses lard these days, but it was common during the 50s. All the preservatives and such MUST affect flavor.

 

[Austin8]

I've lived in the South all my life and havent tasted better fried chicken than CHURCH'S. I may have had some a little better, back in 1954, but it was a long time ago.

I'll go out on a limb here,

with the preverbal none better than my moms,

I still make it the way she did,

organic chemical free chickens and seasoned flour...

but for store bought... Church's