Andrew Mark Veety

Join Me At UCP Heartland’s Inaugural St. Louis Wing Ding

I'm excited to have been asked to be a judge for the first ever St. Louis Wing Ding competition, hosted by United Cerebral Palsy Heartland. The simple yet lofty goal is to discover who has the best chicken wings in St. Louis from 5:00 pm until 8:00 pm, on May 26, August 25th at Crestwood Court. Among the local restaurants in competition are The Market Public House, 11 Mile House, J. Buck's The St. Louis Wing Company and The Highway 61 Roadhouse.

Tickets are $25 per person (kids under 6 get in free!) for unlimited wings and 2 beverages. For more information and tickets, please click here.

Funds raised at the Wing Ding will support UCP Heartland’s programs and services for children and adults with disabilities and their families.  Programs include the Adult Activity Program, Employment Resources (supported employment), Residential Services, Early Childhood Intervention, Family Support Services including respite care, Summer Camps, and our Autism Resource Center in Maryville, Illinois. UCP

Please join me at this fun event and support UCP Heartland on August 25th!

About UCP Heartland

"For many of our consumers, the services that UCP Heartland provides are the only ones available to meet their unique needs.  Faced with multiple and significant disabilities, our participants experience complications with many activities of daily living.  But, as we witness each and every day, these challenges do not limit their desire to experience independence, productivity or full citizenship.  With funds raised at Wing Ding, we can continue to provide the highest quality of programs and supports while advancing the independence, productivity, and full citizenship of individuals with developmental disabilities, helping to create a life without limits for people with disabilities right here in our community. 

Heartland’s mission is to provide the highest quality of programs, services and supports while advancing the independence, productivity and full citizenship of individuals with disabilities.  UCP Heartland is a proud partner of United Way of Greater St. Louis."

Assorted Minutia: 4/30-5/06/2011

I've started to keep a tumblr diary for all the little things that I find, read or eat during the week. With any luck the quick thoughts, dishes I ate and pictures I accumulated along the way will make for a a disjointed yet interesting weekly post.

Porter's Fried Chicken

Depending on who you talk to, Porter's is serving up the best fried chicken in St. Louis. I'd suggest listening to the folks who will tell you it's not to be missed. Skip the sides (or even eating at Porter's) and focus on crisp and flavorful chicken, perfect eaten warm from the box or cold from the fridge. My preference is to alternate between Crystal's hot sauce and honey between pieces.

I last wrote about Porters in August of 2008.

Pizza Toppings / Garnish / Relish

I make this topping a few hours before I begin tossing pizzas. Start with a base of sea salt, minced garlic, crushed red pepper and good olive oil. Add herbs like marjoram or oregano, always fresh and rough chopped to expose their natural oils to the mixture. Drizzle over your pizza before sending it into the oven.

Pizza Made With YellowTree Farm Fall Honey

On the topic of pizza, I used honey from my CSA this week to replace sugar in a pizza dough. Give it a read, then give it a go in your oven.

Garlic And Dill Quick Pickles

My two year old son seems to have my love of pickles in his DNA. Rather than serving up the erie green pickles found at the grocery store, I try to make a batch of quick pickles every few week or so. Dill, garlic, salt, onion powder, water and white wine vinegar make for a treat that quickly vanishes from the fridge.

Art Of The Brine

If you are like me, you like to have the deck stacked in your favor when you're cooking leaner proteins like chicken and pork -- meats that can easily dry out when grilled, seared, baked or smoked. This idea of stacking the deck is not cheating - its more like taking out insurance on your dish. After all, proteins will almost always be the most expensive component of a meal, so its best to have a little something extra on your side to make sure that your food dollar is well spent -- instead of being a dried out lump on your guests plate.

This leg up is called a brine. Brines are simply a liquid saturated with salt that your protein rests in before cooking. Hence the term "briny deep" to describe the sea.

Brines do double duty in the kitchen. First they help keep meat moist by hydrating muscle tissue (meat). By placing a cut of meat, like a whole bird, in a brine you create an environment where the lower salt content within the protein and the higher salt content contained in the liquid will attempt to reach equilibrium. The result is water and salt moving out of the brine and into the meat. The meat retains this liquid during cooking. The result is a moist and flavorful cut of meat - and guests asking how you did it.

Like I said before - you are essentially buying insurance by using a brine. Don't believe me? Ok. Skip a brine and you are more likely to end up with the following situation:

For the record Eddie -- when making a turkey the neck should be cooked with the bird. It should be picked at as the hours pass until only the bone is left and used to make stock. But I digress.

Having A July 4th BBQ? Here's A Tip, Don't Invite Joey Chestnut.

On July 4th, 2010, Joseph Christian "Jaws" Chestnut won his fourth straight Nathan's Hotdog Eating Contest, by slamming down 54 hot dogs in what he himself describes as "a disappointing performance".

I have to admit that 54 dogs is a far cry from 2009's performance when he took down a record 68 dogs. Aside how I personally feel about the sport of competitive eating I can't help but admire Joey's body of work over the years. Check it out:

Chestnut defeated Sonya Thomas in the Waffle House World Waffle Eating Championship and placed second to her in a Krystal Square Off World Hamburger Eating Championship qualifier, downing 56 Krystal Burgers in eight minutes to her 57. He later beat her by eating 91 hamburgers in the finals, finishing second to the 97 hamburgers consumed by Takeru Kobayashi.

Chestnut qualified for the 2006 Nathan's Contest by eating 50 hot dogs with buns. As July 4 approached, there was speculation that 2006 might be the year when Kobayashi would be beaten.It was not to be, however. Although Chestnut turned in a great performance, leading Kobayashi through most of the contest, the final tally put Chestnut at 52 and Kobayashi at 53-3/4 (a new world record).

In 2007, Chestnut won the Wing Bowl XV, another installment of the annual Philadelphia event at the Wachovia Center. In this competition, he ate 182 chicken wings in 30 minutes, becoming a Wing Bowl champion and record holder.

Chestnut drank a gallon of milk in 41 seconds, but did not verify that he completed "The Milk Challenge" by keeping it down for the requisite one hour.

On July 4, 2007, Chestnut and Kobayashi battled the field in a record-setting hot dog eating battle in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York, at Nathan's Contest. Chestnut knocked off Kobayashi 66-63, leading to the latter's first defeat in the contest in six years.

On October 28, 2007 between 2:33 and 2:41, Chestnut ate 103 Krystal burgers in the Krystal Square Off World Hamburger Eating Championship in Chattanooga, Tennessee. This was Chestnut's personal best, and is the new world record.

Starting off 2008 very well, Chestnut has already set two new world records. He devoured 241 wings in 30 minutes at the Wing Bowl XVI in Philadelphia on February 1, and he ate 78 matzo balls during Kenny & Ziggy's World Matzoh Ball Eating Championship in Houston, Texas on March 2.

On July 4, 2008, Chestnut tied Takeru Kobayashi in the annual Nathan's Hot Dog Contest after eating 59 HDB in 10 minutes. The tie resulted in a 5-hotdog eat-off, which Chestnut won by consuming all 5 hot dogs before Kobayashi. The 59 is a new record in the competition based on the reduction from 12 minutes to 10 minutes. Chestnut, 24, weighed in at 102 kilograms (225 pounds).

On July 28, 2008, Chestnut lost to Takeru Kobayashi in Chicken Satay eating in the MLE Asia inaugural event. He consumed just over 4 kilos to Kobayashi's almost 5.5.

On August 23, 2008, Chestnut defeated #2 IFOCE ranked competitive eater Pat "Deep Dish" Bertoletti in the 2nd Gyoza Eating Championship in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, California. He devoured 231 gyoza, setting a new world record; he beat his previous record of 212, set in the inaugural event in 2006 when he narrowly defeated Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas (210). Thomas did not attend the 2008 event due to budgetary and travel costs.

On October 12, 2008, he consumed 45 slices of pizza, winning the "Famous Famiglia World Pizza Eating Championship", which was held in New York's Times Square. This would be a brief record until Bertoletti would consume 47 slices a few weeks later.

On February 21, 2009, he consumed 10 and a half pounds of macaroni and cheese in seven minutes during halftime at the San Jose Stealth lacrosse game, beating out his contestants and adding another world record to his name.

On July 4, 2009, Chestnut topped his previous record of 59 hot dogs and buns by consuming 68 hot dogs in the 2009 Nathan's Hotdog Eating Contest.

On Man v. Food, San Jose, California, Chestnut ate Iguana's Burritozilla: a 5 pound, 17 inch burrito in 3 minutes, 10 seconds.

Joey beat the Free 72 ounce steak challenge at the Big Texan Steak Ranch by eating the steak, a salad, potato, and three shrimp in under an hour. He set a speed record with 8:52 minutes.

Family Style Sunday Dinner At Gallagher's

My favorite way to dine out is family style. From soul food at Mrs. Wilke's Dining Room in Savannah to a massive plate of porterhouse steak for eight at Peter Luger Steakhouse in Brooklyn, it is hard to beat the act of communal dining with friends and family.

I enjoy family style because its a reflection of how our family eats at home. Not only do we enjoy making a menu at the beginning of the week and preparing our meals all week long instead of heading out to restaurants - we also love to fill our home with friends for a meal as often as we can. Give me great friends new and old, a comfortable table to accommodate them and enough inspired food to cover it from end to end and I am a happy man. 

A group of people, giving their time, sharing stories, raising glasses and experiencing the same flavors at the same time. How could it get better than that?

However it is not just the sense of community that attracts me to family style dining, it is also the sense of ritual and history associated with it. Family style cooking is not cutting edge or grand cuisine, although it can often make what was old new again. Family style cooking takes the food of our family, culture and youth and passes it along for all to share. Simply put, it returns us to our roots, or in the case of a family style restaurant, the roots of the folks preparing the meal.

Unfortunately for the dining public, this style is more of a novelty than an every day reality. In its place we find small print at the bottom of a menu indicating an additional charge to share plates, which seems to perplexing to me in so many ways. Is family style not considered a viable business model or have we as diners given up on the idea of communal eating outside of the home?

Well St. Louis, a drive of less than an hour will find you in the sleepy town of Waterloo, Illinois, the home of Gallagher's, a small gem that serves up a superb pan fried chicken dinner on Sunday afternoons. During the week Gallagher's offers up high end pub food like candied bacon burgers and chops, but on Sunday it forgoes its menu in favor of a family style meal that includes biscuits, pan fried chicken, mashed potatoes with a cream gravy, slow cooked green beans with ham, corn custard and a desert for about thirteen bucks a person.

Now that is a family style / family value I can get behind.

The entrance to Gallagher's is one part gastropub and one part Victorian bed and breakfast, however once you move past the doorway and stairs you find yourself in a handsome bar complete with a server who would look more at home at the Royale than this small community surrounded by farmland on all sides. In fact, the hipster feel of our waiter, covered shoulder to knuckle with amazing sleeves of tattoos on each arm, was an awesome juxtaposition to the overall environment. Old and new. Stuffy and punk rock. I enjoyed the feeling of Gallagher's very much.

We were quickly shown to a table and told that our order was already in, which was perfect because now it was clear that Sunday dinner is done right at Gallagher's - count the heads, fill the glasses with tea and start bringing out the food. In this case this was a basket of pulled from the oven buttermilk biscuits that would get the nodding approval of your dear old grandmother. The only improvement would have been some fresh preserves or better yet honey to drizzle.

A biscuit and tall glass of tea later our waiter appeared again with a tray filled with a whole fried chicken, potatoes, gravy, green beans and corn which we took turns dishing out and passing along for the next person to sample.

Standing out were the green beans, perfectly cooked and mixed with large pieces of smokey ham and the corn custard, which walked the thin line between corn casserole and creamed corn.

Lacking were the mashed potatoes which had a pleasant appearance and texture but went from gummy to gummier throughout the meal. While I enjoyed the cream gravy I thought it could have done with some chicken flavor, ideally from some fat reserved from the pan fried chicken. However, as advertised, it is a cream gravy so I can't complain to much.

However, the highlight of this meal was the pan fried chicken, which happens to be my favorite preparation. Unlike a deep fried chicken, the parts are broken down, seasoned, coated and then placed into a cast iron skillet to cook - first on one side and then the other. The chicken was seasoned correctly with salt playing well with a collection of secret spices - I detected onion, garlic and chili for heat but there is enough hidden in there to keep you guessing thought the meal. The crispness of the crust was everything that a Shake 'n Bake coated chicken should be but always isn't.

I opted for dark meat the first go around, which always stands up better to frying than white meat. Both the wing and thigh I had were crisp on the outside and a heady mix of grease and juice on the inside. Normally I am discouraged by an overly greasy piece of fried chicken because it indicates it was was poorly fried, however I was more than OK with it given this pan fry method. My second helping was part of a large breast, and while it was cooked as well as the thigh and wing, it was dryer than I would have expected. Still tasty, but not nearly as much as with the dark meat.

With plates removed and hands and faces washed our waiter appeared again with was was described as a "light cake" comprised of chocolate and a caramel crunch topping. Truth be told it was as billed - the cake was light and airy allowing the sparse topping to provide the heft to this tasty treat. Excellent ending to a solid meal.

Did I mention that this family style meal was thirteen dollars and under an hour from St. Louis? I for one can't wait to return with friends for another round of family style dining at Gallagher's.

WTF? The McNuggetini does not even have any NUGGET in it?

A few weeks ago, the bacon vodka I was working on ended up in a cocktail called a BLT. The beauty of this drink is that is is made with at least the essence of meat, in this case, bacon.

Now here comes the McNuggetini, where a white russian is basicly garnished with a nugget. If this is the current state of meat flavored drinks - we are all in trouble.

Best of 2008

This has been a great year of travel and eating, discovering new tools and techniques for cooking, experiencing great slices of Americana and time spent with friends and family. I thought it would be a good idea to capture a few of my favorites for the past year.

A New Perspective Via A New Grill:

Well constructed and sporting thick cast iron grates, this Brinkman grill creates enough smoke and grill marks to turn my back yard into a decent smokehouse. In short order I adjusted to this new tool and turned out top notch whole chickens, ribs, briskets, massive steaks, pizzas and deserts. 

I really like the front loading door which allows you to feed the fire without lifting the lid and losing heat. Maintaining a steady 220 degrees with minor heat management is priceless, but at around $200.00 this grill is a steal. It takes a bit more work than my old gas grill to prep and clean, but you can't beat it as a cooking tool.

Texas Potatoes:

Potato, onion, butter and bacon in a cast iron skillet. From my post "Roasted Garlic Strip Steaks with Texas Potatoes".

Sony DSC-T500 Camera:

In a year of great new toys the Sony DSC-T500 camera has been my favorite. Small enough to fit into my pocket with 10.1 megapixels, a 3.5" wide touch screen, HD video recording with stereo mics and a 5X Optical Zoom. I also really like the macro lens which allows me to get great close ups of food for the site. I'm also loving not having to pull out my Nikon D70 in greasy diners. 

The large screen is really bright and eats though the battery in short order. After a month or so of use, I'm thinking a back up battery for this camera might be one of my "Best of 2009".

Float Trip Chicken:

There are few things better in the world than floating down a river with friends, beers and cold picnic chicken. From my post "Float Trip Picnic Chicken".

Tortas In The Park:

From my first "interview" for the site - I exchanged emails with my friend and regular Friday lunch companion Bob Baker as we made Tortas for 50 people on his birthday. He went to great lengths to get all the right ingredients and I was happy to help put together this great sandwich. From my post "Tower Grove Park Tortas".

Crab Boil:

I was so happy when my wife completed her LEED certification in September. We filled the back yard with people and I prepared the crabs the only way I know how - with lots of Old Bay and steamed in Guinness. From my post "Seafood Boil In The Heart of St. Louis". 

The New York Times Columnists:

Many thanks to Maureen Dowd, Tom Friedman and Paul Krugman for the insight, information and entertainment this year.

Llywelyn's Pub Burger:

 

One of my favorite burgers of the past year. From my post "Llywelyn's Pub".

Nunez de Prado Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil:

Happen chance introduced me to this great olive oil as I wandered around Whole Foods this year. It's got a perfect balance for cooking or for dipping bread in. Voted one of the best olive oils in America by Cooks Illustrated, Whole Foods stocks 25 oz. bottles for around 15 dollars. Next to bacon fat, this oil has quickly become my choice fat in the kitchen.

The Salt Lick:

Sure it is for show, but the open pit at The Salt Lick was a treat to see, and the folks were super nice and let me ram around in their kitchen. From my post "The Salt Lick Barbeque".

"My Life in France" by Julia Child

Probably the best book I read this year. In it Julia tells the story of learning to live, eat and cook in France. Julia lived an incredible life and her love of slow-food makes me excited to get into the kitchen.

Carl's Drive-In:

Old school burgers smashed on a flat top griddle. From my post "Carl's Drive-In".

Rear Window Defrosters and Heated Seats:

I said goodbye to my 1997 Mazda Miata M-Edition this fall. While this car was always fun to drive, it was never a great every day automobile. Instead I opted for some features the Miata never had - rear window defrosters and heated seats - attached to an Acura RL. Unceremoniously named an "old man's car" by my wife, it has made the commute into work one of the best parts of my day. Why - because I can see out the back window in the winter without risking a broken convertible top.

Woofies New York vs Chicago Showdown:

This past fall was all about hot dogs, Chicago style. From my post "New York vs Chicago Style Hot Dogs".

Fakesgiving Trisket:

I'm still not sure why I wanted to stuff a turkey into a perfectly cooked brisket, but I did it. From my post "Trisket - A Turkey Inside a Brisket".

Charlie The Butcher:

After a particularly good edition of "Meet The Press", I would send an email to Tim Russert of NBC News to congratulate him on that weeks content. To try to elicit a reply from the busy newsman, I would suggest that he reward his staff with beef on weck from Charlie The Butcher in Buffalo, New York. Tim never replied to my emails, but I got a chance to think again about how much his show meant to my Sunday mornings as I enjoyed a sandwich in Buffalo this fall. From my post "Charlie The Butcher's Kitchen".

The Penguin Drive In:

Punk rock music, burgers named after engines and a sweet soda called Cheerwine. From my post "The Penguin Drive-In".

Fatherhood:

Sara and I recently announced that we are pregnant to friends and family, and I launched another blog to document all the events leading up to the arrival of our first child in June of 2009. I think its a given that updates on homemade baby food will require equal billing with burgers and dogs next year.

Can Chicken Experiment 01 - A Delicious Failure

I've always enjoyed making beer can chicken on the grill. With a little practice this method for cooking a whole chicken produces a moist and flavorful bird that will leave your guests asking for seconds.

A while back I threw a barbeque for a dozen friends and I decided it might be fun to switch up this classic meal by not only using a twelve ounce can of Budweiser, but also a Coke, a Dr. Pepper and a Schweppes Ginger Ale as well. My goal was to have a taste test to see which liquid additive resulted in the best tasting bird.

I began by brining each chicken overnight in apple cider, kosher salt, brown sugar, fresh ginger, quartered oranges and allspice berries. The next day I dried and rubbed each bird with the spice mixture I described in my post about float trip picnic chicken. The goal was to treat each chicken the same until it was put on the grill, which conveniently enough is the time when this culinary adventure veered off into failure. Yes, the final product was moist and delicious, but it was a failure nonetheless. 

As I planned this day my goal was to push as much barbeque flavor as I could into each bird, and for me this included cooking each chicken over indirect heat and using an abundance of mesquite smoke. After five hours of smoke and slow and low cooking, each bird was indeed flavorful, moist and fall off the bone tender. However, lost in the brine, spice rub and wood smoke was the purpose of this experiment - the taste imparted by each individual liquid. 

 

My guest were gracious and insisted that as far as taste was concerned we had reached a tie between beer and ginger ale. That may have been the case, but I’d like to reserve judgement until I have a change to revisit this idea. Next time I’ll skip the massive dose of smoke and cook at a higher temperature to really test my idea. 

Here is to happy mistakes and crazy ideas. I can’t wait to try this experiment again, because failure or not, can chicken makes for a great summer time meal.

Know Thy Butcher

From time to time I mention that I prefer to shop for meat at traditional butcher shops instead of local chain supermarkets and warehouse clubs. Most recently I discussed this idea in a post about cooking great steaks at home. 

I've found that having first name relationship with a knowledgeable professional who is willing to discuss ideas and cooking processes with you leads to better results in the kitchen and your back yard barbecue. Finding a local resource for quality meat and customer service takes some work, but it does pay off with your finished product.

Since I posted that article on steaks, a few friends have asked me to explore this idea a bit further. I thought it would be a good idea to not only dig into what to buy at your local meat counter, but how to find one in the first place. 

Here is a brief checklist that you can use to get started in your search:

• Cleanliness - a good butcher shop will not be spotless, but will be clean, well lit and have thermometers positioned for your viewing within the case. Being a butcher is a professional job, and a good butcher and his place of business will look the part.
• Foot Traffic - not only will a crowded counter indicate you are in the right place, it will also ensure that the case is being changed over on a regular basis. 
• Engagement and Conversation - even in the busiest of meat counters, it is appropriate for the butcher to take an interest in your order. Conversation can lead to a discussion on process and cut, and you might find that your butcher has thoughts or experience that you do not.  
• Custom Service / Cuts - the butcher should willingly cut a fresh steak or remove the silver skin from a rack of ribs for you if you ask. 
• Locally Raised Products - the production of meat for consumption places stress on both the livestock and our environment. Whenever possible I search out local free range products including pork, chicken, beef and bison.  

Additionally, the following items are visual cues that I look for, even if they are for ascetics only. 

• Butcher Coats - while not required, they are appreciated.
• Primal Cut Charts and Posters. Do you know when a shoulder is a butt? Where is the chain from? Visual aids are always helpful.
• Butcher Paper - even better if secured with tape baring the shops name. 
• Ironic Tee Shirts - well crafted innuendo and declarative statements regarding meats dominance over vegetables are acceptable. 

Examples:

 
Legrand's Market and Catering

Manzo's Kitchen

Porter's Fried Chicken

Fired chicken can be counted amongst the upper echelon of truly American foods, originating in its current form from the deep south with a history that reaches back to colonial times, when slaves from Africa contributed this culinary masterpiece to our culture. Chicken fried in a fat can also be traced father back in history to Europe and Asia, however it is southern fried chicken that most think of when thoughts turn to what for many is a perfect “Sunday dinner”.

 

Created with simple and inexpensive ingredients and enjoyable piping hot out of the fryer, cold out from the fridge or at ambient temperature out of a picnic basket, it is easy to understand how this meal moved out of the southern states and across the country. 

 

There are as many opinions as to how to make fried chicken as there are people who will tell you that they make it better than everyone else. All told, it seems there are only a few things that separate the good from the bad - the crust, the spice and the balance of deep fried goodness and the juiciness of a chicken that has been steamed perfectly inside the aforementioned crusted coating. 

 

Here in St. Louis there are more than a few places that serve up plates and to go boxes of chicken and the standard fixings, however there are only a few that approach what is arguably the best fried chicken in the country, Price’s Chicken Coop in Charlotte, North Carolina. Make no mistake, the chicken at Price’s is outstanding, however, you don’t have to take my word on it, you can check out what the folks at Roadfood, Serious Eats and even Gourmet Magazine have to say. Better yet, you might just plan a road trip in the future to try some for yourself - you will be glad you did.

 

Coming close to Price’s is a new favorite of mine, Porter’s Fried Chicken, a small and unassuming restaurant nestled into a small strip mall in Shrewsbury, a suburb of St. Louis. The folks behind the counter are quick with a smile and help with the menu, in my case it was trying to figure out the difference between a “Regular” and a “Special” meal, which is all white meat as opposed to a mix of white and dark meat. Meals come with a choice of sides, and being my first visit to Porter’s, I opted for my personal favorite sides for friend chicken - cole slaw and mashed potatoes with white country gravy - which are both tasty without outshining the chicken.

 

A sign hangs on the wall stating that phone orders are welcome, and that is because all the meals are made as they are received, there are no heat lamps at Porter’s. A wait of 10 - 15 minutes proves worthwhile when you are presented with chicken, a roll and sides in a plain take out box.

 

What strikes you first is that fresh out of the fryer, this chicken is not very greasy at all compared to most fried chicken restaurants. Napkins are required though because just inside the crisp and spicy crust is juicy and flavorful chicken that really is “finger licking good”. This is a result of the near perfect crust Porter’s achieves by way of the deep fryer but owing just as much to the steaming action of the chicken inside its crust. This is also the key to perfect fried chicken, where to me, “frying” is a misnomer. Yes, heated fat or oil provides even heat for cooking, but it is the application of the crust before its frying that forms an envelope around the meat. This envelope allows the natural water within the chicken to steam and cook, keeping the moisture inside. The trick is to pull your chicken before the delicate equilibrium between oil and water changes, and the oil moves into the meat creating a greasy mess.

 

One only has to observe the line leading from the counter to the door to see that the folks at Porter’s are on to something special. I am looking forward to my next visit.

 

Opinion: Recommended

3628 South Big Bend Blvd

St. Louis, MO 63143

781-2097

On the web:

• St. Louis Eats and Drinks with Joe and Ann Pollack

Float Trip Picnic Chicken

A simple pleasure of Midwest living is the "float trip". Coolers are packed with beverages and food, and then friends take off down the river in rafts, tubes and pretty much anything else that will, well, float. Ideally, when asked by friends and coworkers on the east coast why I live in Missouri with the heat, floods and tornadoes, I should point to the float trip as one of many reasons.

I was asked to make something to eat for a recent float trip, so I racked my brain and cookbook collection for a meal that would travel well in the Midwest heat while still feeding a large group. I decided that I wanted to make cold chicken, but there were several obstacles that I wanted to tackle before serving my waterlogged friends. At issue was how to prepare the meat so it would remain moist up to a day after cooking and what to do with the rubbery skin that can ruin an otherwise perfect piece of chicken.

Over the last few years, I've taken to selecting thighs as my cut of choice when preparing chicken. It's a shame they are so often overlooked as they are affordable and have a great meat to bone ratio. Also, the dark meat thigh stands up to abuse that would dry out its white meat counterpart, the breast. I almost always rub or brine chicken thighs before cooking, with some of my favorite combinations being an overnight soak in lemon juice, olive oil, scallions, garlic and tarragon or simply using my house spice rub.

For this float trip, I decided on barbecuing chicken using my go to dry rub to impart flavor, saving my friends from the glorious mess resulting from barbeque sauce covered hands.

My house rub is super easy and follows the pit master approved ratio of 8 - 3 - 1 - 1:

8 parts brown sugar
3 parts kosher salt
1 part chili powder
1 part other (can be any combination of spices and herbs, as long as it equals 1 whole part)

The beauty of this formula is that as long as you stick to the ratio, you can use any measurement you would like, be it tablespoons, cups or gallons. I usually make a large batch and keep it in a sealed shaker for chicken and ribs. I've also been known to jar it and give away at the holidays.

What follows is a two day process for making my cold picnic chicken.

Day 1

The afternoon before I planned on making these thighs, I washed, scored and carefully peeled back the skin (don’t totally detach) on each so I could season the meat with my rub. After seasoning, I folded the skin back and placed the thighs on a wire rack resting inside a baking sheet. Then I applied a second coating of the rub on top of the skin, covered loosely with foil and then placed in the coldest part of my fridge, the bottom shelf, for an overnight rest.

This method helps to solve one of the problems I was worried about, keeping the chicken moist as it cooked. The salt in my rub acts very much like a brine, drawing the natural water and salt out of the chicken to its surface, then back into the chicken hours later as the chicken reabsorbs the water and most of the rub. The net result is a "brine" that flavors the meat with the rub while keeping the chicken moist.

I alluded to how I approached eliminating soggy and rubbery chicken when I referenced scoring the skin before applying the rub. For each thigh, I used a chef's knife to cut inch long channels in the skin without cutting the meat. In general, chicken skin is full of fat which will not completely render during cooking - it has no way to escape and remains trapped under the skin. Scoring the skin provides an escape route for fat, allowing it to baste the chicken while cooking and letting the skin form a thin crispy layer.

Day 2

The day before our trip and my planning and prep work completed, I started a one zone fire in my grill, allowing me to cook the chicken thighs skin side up over low and slow indirect heat. Using a mixture of natural lump charcoal and apple wood chunks, I smoked these thighs for four hours at 225 degrees, replenishing the fuel supply as needed to maintain a consistent temperature. Several times during the process, I rotated the thighs skin side down over the hot zone, rendering out additional fat and to crisp the skin. I was quick to remove the chicken during flare-ups, and each thigh was not exposed to direct heat more than a minute or two in total.

After four hours on the grill, I brought the chicken inside, placed on a clean wire rack and baking sheet, covered with foil and left in the bottom shelf of the fridge. My wife and I shared a piece for lunch and it was everything I was looking for, moist, smoky with great barbecue flavor and thin crispy skin.

Bringing it all together:

The next day I packed the thighs into a cooler along with some other snacks, ice, beer, and what I am told is a float trip requirement, Jell-O shots. We enjoyed a great day on the river with friends and shared a fine lunch of cold picnic chicken on a sandbar before continuing on our way. Sure I got sunburned so bad that if you placed me on a bun I'd look like a lobster roll, but it was a great day nonetheless.