Nathaniel's Chicken

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Quick Links To Sections Of This Page:
Recipe Overview and Description
Ingredients and Equipment List
Fire Building and Control
Preparing the Chicken
Preparing the Sauce
Grilling the Birds

Recipe Overview and Description

Nathaniel's Chicken is very different than most barbecued yard-birds. Instead of using a tomato based sauce, the unique flavor comes from a lemon-butter based sauce.

In my opinion, Nathaniel's Chicken is best cooked over charcoal but is excellent on a gas grill or in the oven. Be aware that the sauce burns easily, so when cooking on a grill, be extra-careful by following my detailed instructions below or you may burn it up.

If you are an experienced outdoor cook, you WILL find this recipe overly-detailed. The details are primarily for less-experienced but desirous BBQ chicken experts.

Our favorite side dishes with Nathaniel's Chicken are potato salad, pinto beans and rolls. Try these or serve with your favorites.

Nathaniel's Chicken takes me about 2.5 hours from start to done. Beginning outdoor chicken cooks may want to add another half-hour to accomodate the learning curve.

I enjoy the process of cooking Nathaniel's Chicken as much as I enjoy the product. For me, it is a labor of love. I hope you find satisfaction in it too! Don't be surprised if neighbors or guests peek-in to see what smells so good.

Please note:

Read all instructions below before starting anything. Be sure you understand the whole process. With practice you will adjust your routine to fit your needs and style.

Ingredients and Equipment List

Ingredients (based on serving four adults).

4 Chicken Leg Quarters (or breasts if you prefer them)
Lemon Garlic seasoning (lemon-herb is good too)
1 Stick Butter (or equivalent of butter substitute)
The juice and pulp of 1 large lemon
Original Tabasco Sauce
Worestershire Sauce
Black Pepper

Equipment (based on using charcoal grill)

Charcoal grill with enough surface area for your chicken
Aluminum Foil large enough to line the bottom of grill
Charcoal starter or charcoal chimney and newspaper
Wire brush for cleaning the grilling surface
1" paint brush for applying sauce
Metal sauce pan with lid
1 pair of cooking tongs
1 large paper towel
Lighter or matches
Large done plate

Fire Building and Control

WARNING:

FIRES ARE DANGEROUS. Fires can seriously INJURE OR KILL you, your guests, pets, etc. You can also BURN down your home, other people's homes, destroy your RV, KILL OR INJURE other people, start a forest-fire, ETC.

BE CAREFUL AND USE COMMON SENSE. Read all the directions on the charcoal bag, charcoal starter bottle, any applicable owner manuals, etc. If you are not experienced with fires and outdoor cooking, GET HELP.

Building and controlling a charcoal fire for cooking is part art and part science but mostly science. Making the fire is easy enough. Controlling the temperature is the part that can be tricky but is very important for the best results.

The most common mistake I have seen is using water to cool a fire that is burning the food but is otherwise under control. Putting water on a hot fire with food on the grill causes ashes to cover your food. The water also tends to put the fire out instead of reducing the temperature.

The best way to control the temperature of a fire is to get the fire to the right temperature BEFORE putting the food on and monitoring it throughout the cooking process and finally closing lid and vents before you go inside when the food is done .

If the food is on the grill already but is starting to flare up and burn your chicken, close the grill's lid and vents for a few minutes. If things are really bad, pull the food off temporarily and then close the lid and vents. If it is any worse than that, leave the lid closed, get the garden hose and call 911.

The correct way to control the temperature of the fire is by controlling the amount of air getting to it as you will see further on. With that said, lets get started:

Remove old charcoal, ashes, food pieces and loose material from inside the grill. If necessary, spray the inside out with a garden hose. Don't worry about drying it out. The fire will do that in a minute.

Spread aluminum foil across the bottom of the grill below the grate or pan that holds the charcoal. This makes clean-up easier. Be careful to not cover any vent holes in the bottom or sides of grill. You can poke holes in the foil where it does cover any vents. If you don't care about ease of clean-up, you can skip the foil entirely.

Charcoal Starter Method (chimney method below)

Put charcoal in the pan or on the grate. Use enough to match the size the food will be on the grilling surface PLUS another 1/3 to account for the amount that will burn up before you start cooking.

Use the charcoal briquets to make a pyramid as high as you can without it falling down. Cover entire pyramid SLOWLY and evenly with charcoal starter until the charcoal looks a bit moist after the starter sits on it for a few seconds.

Cover the pyramid with a paper towel. The paper towel helps to not let the excess fluid evaporate but instead soak in. Wait about 2 minutes (I usually wash my hands during this time).

Light the paper towel and the flame will light the whole pile evenly and completely. My Big Uncle Buddy taught me this paper towel trick. I will never forget him. Thanks B.U.B

If possible without destroying your pyramid, put the cooking grate over the fire. If that is not possible then you can wait to put the cooking grate on a bit later. Just don't let the spent paper towel escape and burn something.

Charcoal Chimney Method (skip if using starter)

Put enough charcoal in the chimney to cover the area the food will occupy on the grill PLUS about 1/3 more to account for the amount that will burn before you start cooking.

Add newspaper to the bottom section of the chimney and light it. That's all if using a chimney.

Personally I like the chimney method with one exception: sometimes I find that one chimney will NOT hold enough charcoal to make a fire large enough for what I need.

In this case you can use two chimneys at the same time to have enough fire for the amount of food you are cooking.

IMPORTANT: BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN PICKING UP THE CHIMNEY AND DUMPING THE BURNING CHARCOAL INTO THE GRILL!!!

Continuing Instructions (starter or chimney methods):

Depending on the size of the fire, the freshness of the charcoal, the quaility of the charcoal starter used, the wind and the outside temperature, the fire will take anywhere from 15-45 minutes to be ready for cooling, then cooking.

During the waiting time, I usually prepare the chicken and prepare the sauce. Less experienced outdoor cooks may find it easier to do these two steps before starting the fire until they feel comfortable with the whole process.

The fire is almost ready for cooking when almost all of the black on the charcoal is gone and the rest of the briquets are a gray ash color. I say almost ready because you need to cool that fire down before you put any chicken on the grill.

First spread the briquets out evenly to form a single layer of charcoal on the cooking grate. Keep the pieces all touching each other but not piled on top of each other.

If you did not put the cooking grate on earlier, put it on now and use your wire brush to remove old food, grease, ashes etc. Now put the lid on the grill and open the vent on the lid about halfway. Open any bottom or side vents all the way.

With the vents adjusted, wait about 5-10 minutes to let the fire cool down a bit. The temperature is controlled by how much air you let the fire breathe. This is mostly controlled with the vent on the lid.

You can usually open the vents on the sides (if any) and especially on the bottom of the grill, all the way open. Because heat rises, the fire will only suck as much air into the bottom and sides as it can release out of the lid. So you mostly control temperature on a basic grill with the lid vent.

The more air you give a fire, the hotter it will be. By choking down the air getting to the charcoal, using the lid vent, the fire will cool down to chicken cooking temperature of 250-350 degrees Farenheit.

Your fire is ready for cooking when you can hold your hand, palm side down, right above the vent hole for about 4 seconds without burning your hand. Once the temperature is right, remove the cooking grate and let it cool off while you go get your chicken.

If you put the chilled chicken on a hot cooking grate, it will stick every time. If instead you let the grate and the chicken heat up at the same time, by putting the grate back on followed by the chicken, they will heat evenly and sticking will be less of a problem.

Preparing the Chicken

The freshest chicken is the one you catch in your yard and go from there. Most chicken is frozen before you buy it at the store. That chicken should be thawed before washing, seasoning and cooking.

Frozen chicken is easily and quickly thawed NOT using the microwave but instead putting it in a container of cold water. The microwave is the worst way to thaw chicken and takes just as long as water.

Do not leave the chicken in the wrapper and styrofoam while trying to thaw it. Styrofoam and wrapper insulates the chicken and slows the thawing process.

Throroughly clean thawed chicken by rinsing under cold water. Drain excess water off of the chicken.

Season the chicken by sprinkling the pepper and lemon-garlic (or lemon-herb) on all surfaces. Put the chicken in the refrigerator, uncovered, for at least 15 minutes for crispy skin chicken results. Putting it in the fridge drys the skin. You can skip this step if you strip chicken skin or use skinless.

Preparing the Sauce

This sauce recipe is for about 4 chicken leg quarters. Adjust according to the amount of chicken you are making. In general you are better off with too much than too little. This sauce is for the cooking process and not for serving with the food. Discard any sauce not used during cooking to avoid food contamination. I think you will find you do not need any table sauce anyway.

Put the butter or butter substitute into the sauce pan. Juice your lemon and get the pulp out of it. Add it to the pan. Put in about 1 teaspoon of black pepper and about 1 tablespoon of the lemon-garlic (lemon-herb) seasoning. Add 2 tablespoons of Worestershire Sauce and about 1-2 teaspoons of Original Tabasco Sauce (depending on your family's or guest's tastes).

Bring the mixture to a slight boil while stirring constantly. Once it starts to bubble good, turn it off, put the lid on and remove from burner. Now you are ready to go once the fire is ready as per instructions above.

Grilling the Birds

As instructed above, the fire needs to be between 250-350 degrees Farenheit for best results. Its okay to start with a 350 degree fire and let it slowly degrade to 250 during the cooking process. In fact I have found this is the best.

Get your prepared chicken and go to the grill. Do not worry about the sauce. You are not going to need it until chicken has been cooking for 30-45 minutes anyway.

The cooking grate should not be on the grill at this point. It should have been cooling off after sterilizing and cleaning it.

Put the cooking grate back on the grill. Put the chicken pieces directly over the fire, bone side down. Be sure to kind of wipe the chicken across the grill which will lubricate the grill with chicken skin oil which will help prevent sticking.

Arrange the pieces so that the thickest parts are closest to the center of the fire and the thinner parts (like the drumsticks) close to the edge and pointing away from the fire.

Close the lid and adjust the grill lid vent to about half-way. This should have already been done but check it to be sure.

Shortly you should hear the chicken sizzling a little bit. If the chicken sizzles immediately when you put it on the grill, your fire is too hot -- close the top vent to cool it down.

If you do not hear a steady sizzling within a few minutes your fire is too cool. Open the vents up and even the lid if needed to let the fire breathe more and heat up so that that you hear a steady sizzling of the chicken. Then adjust accordingly to maintain that.

For the first 30-45 minutes you do not want to add sauce or do anything else to the chicken other than open the lid and scoot the chicken a little bit with your tongs to make sure it is not sticking.

Don't flip the chicken when doing this. Just use your tongs to nudge the pieces enough to confirm they are loose and not sticking to the grate. If they are sticking, do your best to gently pull them loose and then scoot them around to lubricate the grill to prevent more sticking.

Go get your saucepan and if possible, put it directly on the top of your grill to heat it up and get it ready for saucing.

Once the chicken has been steadily cooking for 30-45 minutes get your paint brush and stir the sauce thoroughly. It should be almost watery at this point. Stir it well.

Use your paint brush and liberally paint the chicken top side with sauce. DO NOT TURN IT OVER. Move the chicken around if you want but do not flip it. That comes later.

The pit should start smoking profusely almost immediately after your first coat of sauce. It will continue to do this until you are about done. If it is not smoking, your fire may be too low and you may need to open vents/lid to give the fire some air.

You may even need to raise one side of the cooking grate with your wire brush using one hand and use the other hand and your tongs to move the coals around and knock the ashes off of them and kind of "get the fire going again".

Continue painting the chicken with the sauce about every 5-10 minutes without turning it. Move it around as needed to keep it from burning.

You should hear a slow, steadily-sizzling throughout the process and that sound should start off pretty strong and gradually taper off during the cooking process.

Near the end of the cooking time, flip the chicken and sauce the backsides that have been against the fire. Close the lid. Be careful to not leave the chicken "upside-down" for long -- no more than about 5-7 minutes or it may burn.

Flip chicken back over and sauce again. If you want the chicken "upside" to be a little more done, wait 5 minutes, flip, and sauce the backside again. Be careful not to burn it up.

If you started with a 350 degree fire and maintained that most of the cooking time, the chicken should be done in about 1 hour. Chicken should always be cooked until juices flowing from it are clear (not pink or red at all). This is important.

If you started with a 350 degree fire and let it slowly degrade, the chicken should be done in about 1.5 hours. The best batch I ever cooked started at about 300 degrees, cooked for almost 2 hours without being burned at all and it practically fell apart when I removed it from the grill.

When you are satisfied the chicken is done, remove it and place on your done plate. Presentation counts for a lot. Arrange that chicken on the plate in a fashion that reflects your love, efforts and skill.

NOTE: Before you go inside or enjoy your food, BE SURE TO SECURE YOUR FIRE AND COOKING AREA. Close the lid and vents on a charcoal grill, close vents and turn off the gas grill, turn off the oven, bring everything dirty in to wash, etc.

HALLELUJAH. Be sure to ask God to bless your work and the food and bless the food to your family and guests.

Practice and adjust this recipe to fit your own tastes and style. I pray you will find it is worth your efforts.

Email me with any questions you may have.

In Christ,
Nathaniel

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