Smoked chicken with vegetables

Date: July 10th, 2011

Chicken recipe:

• 1 whole roasting chicken
• 1 gallon water
• 1 cup kosher salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• smoker (I used an electric smoker, but a grill would also work)

Mix the water with the salt and sugar and brine the chicken for 4 hours. Fire up your smoking apparatus and smoke the chicken for 3-4 hours until done.

Vegetables recipe:

• 1 pack of brussel sprouts
• 1 potato
• 4 tablespoons of butter

Dice the potato and brussel sprouts. Melt the butter in a frying pan and add the brussel sprouts and potatoes. Add salt and pepper to taste and sautee until the brusssel sprouts are done (they’ll take longer).

Time to table: 8 hours prep/smoking time, 30 minutes cooking time for vegetables

Servings: 2 adults, 1 toddler with plenty of leftover chicken for two more dinners.

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: I was going to add garlic to the vegetables, but I got lazy and the frying pan was already crowded. The smoking method I used was the following:

• electric smoker (Brinkmann 810-7080-k)
• hickory wood chips, I had to add more every hour or so
• I put the chicken on at 12:45 and took it off at 5:15. It rested while I cooked the veggies.

I ordered some wood chunks (as opposed to chips) on Amazon today so that I won’t need to add them to the smoker as often. My dad just got a new smoker and gave me his old one that needed a new element. The element arrived on Saturday and I smoked salmon this morning and the chicken at night, it was a great day for cooking!

I’m going to look into some vegetarian smoking/grilling options because our meat consumption will go through the roof this summer if my current interest in smoking and grilling continues at its current pace.