Chicken Little / Hasty Bake

I like using a standard rotisserie setup on my Hasty Bake Gourmet cooker and this is a cook using my non-standard EZ-Que rotisserie unit which I have adapted to several cookers. It’s kinda a work in process on this cooker as EZ-Que has gone out of business so I can’t get any parts to match it to this great cooker.



This is also a low-carb cook and will consist of a couple of Cornish Hens which will be brined in a honey brine which is sitting behind the hens in the half gallon jug.

I will grill some low-carb veggies which I have marinaded in my own no carb marinade which is in the bowl behind the veggies.

The other item I will be cooking is a can of Spam which is not shown in the picture.



I gotta thank Jeanie at Cowgirls Country Blog for the idea for this picture. Every time I see it, it cracks me up.

Anyway, I let the girls hang out a bit with their feet in the liquid before I dropped them down into the brine pot.



I brined the hens for about 2-1/2 hours.



About 5 hours before the fire, I put the veggies into my marinade and then back into the fridge. The veggies consisted of some celery, carrots, mushrooms, plum tomatoes, bell pepper, green onions, and garlic.



I got the cooker fired up and started bringing it up to temp.

After the hens came out of the brine, I washed them off good. I placed some onions, celery, and garlic inside the hens. I then placed some rosemary and bay leaves under the breast skin. I added a light sprinkle of my no carb rub and placed them into my EZ-Que cradle.



I installed the cradle into the cooker and turned it loose. I also added the Spam which is not shown in the picture.



Time to just let the cooker do its thing.



Took them veggies straight out of the marinade and placed them on the direct part of the cooker. Kinda let them char up a little and I must have eaten half of them during the cooking process. Man, were they good.

I cooked the hens to about 165 internal and pulled them off the cooker. I then plated it up for presentation to Mommy since it is her birthday meal.




Shazaaaam...that looks great!



I split those hens right down the middle into two pieces.




I got it plated up and added a scoop of cottage cheese and gave it to Jan. Her total meal is less than 2 grams of carbs.

What did I eat you might ask...




Look at the great crust I put on that block of Spam. Just add a little mustard and horseradish and I am ready for my meal.

Low Carb Grilling / Char-Broil 940X

As Fall arrives at the Po-Farm, we usually start lo-carbing and this means a lot of outside charcoal grilling thru the Winter season. There is just no way to fix all the meat that we eat any better than over charcoal on a good grill. The flavor of anything cooked over charcoal is so much better than cooked with or over any other fuel in my opinion. We try to grill about two times a week and when we do, we cook enough for several meals and just re-heat as needed.



This cook was to be eight 6 oz burgers, two large porterhouse beef steaks, two Compart Farms dry aged porterhouse chops, and a very nice Compart Farms pork tenderloin.

This grilling along with the tenderloin will require both a direct and indirect fire so I used my Char-Broil 940X and set it up by loading just the right half of the firebox with some Ozark Oak lump charcoal and then raised the charcoal grid up to where it is close to my cooking grate and fired it up.

Beautiful Fall sunny morning with the temp at about 45 degrees. A great day for an outside cook.



Wife had the fatburgers ready...I call them fatburgers because we make them with the fattiest burger we can find. FAT is flavor. Just a little sea salt and some good fresh ground Tellicherry pepper is all these patties need.



These two large porterhouse beef steaks weren’t very thick but well marbled and should cook up well. They were prepped with some garlic salt and fresh ground pepper.



This is the Compart Duroc “all natural” pork tenderloin. This is the “Filet Mignon” of pork cuts. It just doesn’t get any better then this cut of pork and it needs to be treated as such. I just want to compliment this pork a little so I sprinkled on a very light coat of my low carb rub and it was ready for the grill.



These are the Compart Duroc Premium Dry Aged Porterhouse Pork Chops and they were just slightly over 1-1/2” thick. Now that my friend is a chop!! These premium chops were seasoned with some sea salt and Tellicherry pepper.



As soon as the fire was very hot, I started with the tenderloin as it will take the longest to cook. I seared both sides for a few minutes and placed it on the indirect part of the grate to finish it up.



I seared the burgers about 3 minutes a side and they were done enough to suit me. I didn’t have to finish them indirect.



I seared the Porterhouse beef steaks about two minutes a side and they were done to about medium and that was a little overcooked as I wanted them more rare. They were just too thin for me to get them cooked the way I wanted them.



Sure was a pretty day and the cooker did a fine job with this cook.



I seared the Compart chops about 3 minutes a side and they tested at about 140 degrees internal so I took them off the grill.

I then checked the Compart pork tenderloin and it was at 135 degrees so I let it go about 10 more minutes and pulled it off.



It sure looked good.



Isn’t that pretty...it will just melt in your mouth...still pink and very juicy.



The Compart Farms Dry Aged Porterhouse Pork chops.



The porterhouse steaks just off the cooker.



My fatburgers.

The last four pictures are the way we might serve them for our locarb meals.






Many thanks go out to The Compart Family Farms Premium Duroc Pork for donating some great pork to the Char-Broil Fall Gathering as it is the best I have even eaten.

Spun and Kicked Chicken / Hasty Bake

This is one great dish and we do it often on our cookers and grills. I start out with a couple of nice Bell & Evans clean and non-injected whole chickens. I butterfly them by cutting the back out of the chickens and then breaking the breast bone so they will lay flat. In this crazy pc world, they now call it spatchcocking.



I arrange them in my spinner cage for cooking.



I sprinkle on a medium dose of Smokin’ Guns hot rub to both sides of the whole chickens.



Brought the cooker up to temp using Ozark Oak lump with some hickory chunks for the smoke wood. I then loaded my two butterflied whole chickens into my Gourmet.



I got it all spinning and smoking on the cooker.



In a little over an hour, things were looking good.



Took the meat off of the cooker as it was looking great.



Now that is a pretty piece of chicken.

The chicken is spun so now we will “kick it”.



I take one pound of bacon and cut it up into about 3/4” pieces and place it into a skillet. Cook it until is about crisp and strain the grease off and set aside. I then cut up about 4 hot peppers into small pieces and this time I used two Jalapeno and two hot banana peppers.



Hot peppers ready for my treat.



Next step is to pull all the skin off of the chicken.



Cut this skin up into small pieces.



Load the chicken skin into the bacon grease and cook it a little while and then add the peppers and cook them a little while and add the bacon. Strain off the grease again and it is ready to use.



Pull your chicken and place it into a bowl.



Add your “kickin” mixture.



Stir it all up and it is ready for the Slyder buns. You now have spun and kickin chicken which is real good for a number of treats.



How about a couple of my spun and kicked up pulled chicken Slyders?

As with most of my charcoal cooking, I always do some hot wings.



Hot wings on the rotisserie are great.



Good Stuff!