Dateline: May 2, 2020 Testing, Testing

I am testing how the grill does a spatchcocked chicken and a whole head of cauliflower.  Why those 2 things?  I had them on hand and the chicken had to be cooked, got 3 in a delivery on Wednesday and no where in the freezer to store them.  So it's chicken, chicken, chicken for the next couple of days.

Chicken Ingredients

1 spatchcocked chicken, (fancy way of saying take out the backbone, flip over and push on the front                  to have it lie flat).  

I got these on a whim from Wegmans

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 t salt

1/4 t pepper

1 T olive oil

Paste

1.5 t  garlic cloves, crushed to a paste

1 t harissa paste

1 t pesto paste

1 t sun dried tomato paste

salt and pepper

Mix together all of the paste ingredients before adding salt and pepper, taste, and if necessary, add salt and pepper

Loosen the skin on the breast and thighs of the chicken, put 1/2 of the paste under both sides of the breast skin, split the remaining paste between the thighs and drumsticks.

Smooth out the skin to cover the meat.  In a small bowl mix the baking soda, salt, pepper, and oil. Rub this onto the top of the skin.  The baking soda changes the pH of the skin and should make it very crisp.  

Cauliflower

1 large head of cauliflower, trimmed of leaves and cored, keeping head intact

1/2 t salt

1/2 t pepper

1/2 t garlic powder

1/2 t onion powder

1/2 t sweet paprika, not smoked

cooking spray

Spray the cauliflower all over with the cooking spray.

Mix the spices together in a small bowl and sprinkle all over the cauliflower.

Heat grill to 300°F and put both things onto the grates.  If you would like, put a thermometer into the thigh of the chicken away from the bone and close the lid.  

Check on it and it should be done when the temp in the thigh is 175 - 180° F and the breast registers 165°F.

Note:  The skin never crisped up.  Not sure why, perhaps I needed to have some high heat action at some point.  So I used a blow torch to brown the skin up nicely.

the cauliflower was not cooked all the way either.  The pellet grill needs some work in terms of me understanding how to utilize it best.