Friday, March 25, 2011

Island Grilled Chicken, Fruited CousCous, and Caribbean Black Beans

















Island Grilled Chicken

1 butterflied frying chicken, see note

Island Rub:
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

Mojo Basting Sauce:
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 serrano chili, seeded and minced
2 tablespoons hone
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
non-stick cooking spray

Carefully loosen the skin on the chicken and slide about half the island rub up under the skin...spreading out to cover as much of the meat as possible. Rub the remainder on the outside of the chicken, both sides. Cover and refrigerate about 4 hours.
Combine the ingredients for the basting sauce, whisking to dissolve the honey. Set aside.
Remove the chicken from the fridge and let sit at room temperature for about an hour before grilling.
Prepare a medium-hot grill. Put the coals under 1/2 of the grilling grate, leaving the other half without coals. Liglty spray both sides of the chicken with non-stick spray. Place the chicken, skin side up and cook until the chicken has a nice brown color, about 4 minutres. Turn over and brown the skin side, about 4 minutes more. Once browned, move the chicken OFF the coals to the other side of the grill and cook with indirect heat with the lid of the grill down, basting with the sauce about 3 times during cooking. Depending on your fire, you will need to cook for an hour to an hour and a half.

Note: You may ask the butcher to do this for you or you may do it yourself. It is quite easy to do. Here is a video I found online that shows the steps. I went one step further with my chicken and removed the rib bones but that is not necessary to prepare this recipe.
http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/butterflychicken.html
 












Fruited CousCous

1 cup couscous
1 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 dash cayenne pepper
3 dried apricots, chopped
1 tablespoon dried cranberries
1 tablespoon golden raisins
1 tablespoon raisins
1 teaspoon orange zest
1 teaspoon lime zest

Bring broth, butter, salt and cayenne to a boil. Add couscous and remaining ingredients; stir well, cover and remove from heat. Let sit for 5 minutes; fluff with a fork and serve.















Caribbean Black Beans

4 strips bacon, diced
1 cup onion, diced
1 cup poblano pepper, seeded and diced
3 tablespoons garlic, minced
1 30 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup low sodium chicken broth
3 cups hot cooked rice

Saute bacon in a large saute pan over medium heat, 5 minutes; remove from pan. Add onion and pepper; and saute in bacon drippings for 3 minutes. Stir in the garlic and saute 1 minute.
Stir in reserved bacon, beans, and broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
Serve with rice.

(With this dinner, I didn't make the rice since we had couscous as a side.)

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