BBQ Chicken

Thought I'd move this interesting topic from CHEESEBURGER to its own.

E-Raq, you were saying about buying packets of sauce at Loblaws. I had always bought the St. Huberts packets, although I didn't like their sauce the same way as I like Swiss Chalet's. But interesting notes about BBQd chicken: Soriana offers the best price on those flattened, grilled chickens, which I find stay much juicier than the spit ones... and terrifically salty to my taste. The price is also much better than the guys on the roadways. With the addition of Chalet sauce, OMG.

Every so often, WalMart and Soriana sell whole chickens at 29 pesos a kilo, so I always have a couple in the freezer. At about 60 pesos a chicken, it's a great deal for BBQ or oven roasting, because the chicken at that price is a LOT bigger than the spit chickens on the roadways.

Oh no, St. Huberts is not even close to Swiss Chalet. Now, as you know those spit chickens in Canada are done in a closed rotisserie, big guy's new barbeque relies on cooking a lot of stuff with the lid closed.

On another note, I find the chicken here generally way better then the chicken in Canada, and years ago used to drive to the Kitchener farmers market and stock up the freezer with the mennonite chickens. They were awesome. Chickens here are close, not the same, but near enough for jazz.

On to price, Swiss Chalet has become extremely expensive. Take out for two last trip, not including a drink was $20. In the restaurant, the same thing with a beer each would be well over $30.

Let's just say that here, we have it made in the shade. Costco chickens are outstanding.

BTW, in Canada Loblaws and Fortinos, one of their offshoots, regularly sell out of the sauce mix, so last visit we had to wait for the next shipment. The Canadians are on this in a major way.

E-raq:

While waiting for your rotisserie, a suggestion based upon our recent experience: Beer Can Chicken

We made a dry rub with: kosher salt, light brown sugar, paprika, oregano, fresh ground pepper, and crumbled bay leaves. We sprinkled the chicken skin and cavity with this mixture the day before and placed it in a zip lock bag in the refrig. We used a can of brown ale with about 1/4 poured off. While there are those who contend that one can insert the can of beer into the cavity and then stand the bird up on the grates, previous attempts had taught me that this was a frustrating effort. So I purchased the following:
[img][/img]
While this stand has a drip pan to minimize drippings falling onto the grates, I stood ours in a foil drip pan to catch any overflow. We have a three burner gas grill, so I lit the two outside burners and stood the chicken in the center. Cooking time was about 90 minutes and I periodically basted the chicken with the drippings captured in the drip pan.

End product had a nicely browned crispy skin while the meat had a great deal of flavor and moisture! And zero problems with trying to balance the chicken upright on a beer can.

CheenaGringo wrote:E-raq:

While waiting for your rotisserie, a suggestion based upon our recent experience: Beer Can Chicken

We made a dry rub with: kosher salt, light brown sugar, paprika, oregano, fresh ground pepper, and crumbled bay leaves. We sprinkled the chicken skin and cavity with this mixture the day before and placed it in a zip lock bag in the refrig. We used a can of brown ale with about 1/4 poured off. While there are those who contend that one can insert the can of beer into the cavity and then stand the bird up on the grates, previous attempts had taught me that this was a frustrating effort. So I purchased the following:
[img][/img]
While this stand has a drip pan to minimize drippings falling onto the grates, I stood ours in a foil drip pan to catch any overflow. We have a three burner gas grill, so I lit the two outside burners and stood the chicken in the center. Cooking time was about 90 minutes and I periodically basted the chicken with the drippings captured in the drip pan.

End product had a nicely browned crispy skin while the meat had a great deal of flavor and moisture! And zero problems with trying to balance the chicken upright on a beer can.

Thanks Neil, the rotisserie arrives next week. Soooo, big guy will be totally intent on producing a reasonable facsimile of Swiss Chalet.

After that, we'll definitely try the beer can deal.