When I moved to Houston in 1975, I found myself looking for a place to live in Seabrook, a coastal community along Galveston Bay that’s part of the booming suburban area known as Clear Lake (home to the NASA Johnson Space Center). Within that community is a long road along the bay known as Toddville Road where we found a house for rent. It was owned by an 82 year old guy by the name of Herman (H.J.) Leggie. Old H.J. lived in the back in a one room shack and rented his house for income.
Among a number of things in his life he was a small engine mechanic (working on anything from an outboard to a lawn mower) and an accomplished gardener. The guy grew cantaloupes the size of bowling balls. One day when I was rooting around his repair shed low and behold I saw this vessel, maybe 300 gallons that had been made into a stick burner. Yea old H.J. was somewhat of an accomplished pitmaster at some point in his life as well.
Well having cataracts so bad in both eyes that he could hardly see meant that repairing engines and cooking barbecue was pretty much ancient history for him. So I volunteered to drag the cooker out and clean it up and see if I could do some smoking. Now at that time I had no idea what real smoking was all about, I was an accomplished backyard cremator of meat on a grill.
So for my first cook I started a charcoal fire in the cooking chamber (what’s that fire box for??) and began to grill some chicken. Well as usual I managed to burn it up before it got done internally. So for my efforts old H.J. chews my ass out calling me a moron and shows me how to smoke using the offset fire box. He also told me that in Texas they cook chicken using Wishbone Italian dressing to keep it moist and preventing it from burning up.
Well after that, and for a lot of years that followed, I kind of perfected that method of marinating in Wishbone and mopping with a combination of the dressing and Woody’s marinade. As time went on I began learning other ways to cook chicken and kind of forgot that first lesson old H.J. had taught me.
Fast forward to recent times and I ran across this book on Amazon. Within it was a recipe that low and behold was exactly from back in the day, using Wishbone to marinate and mop chicken......
So what the heck I did some over the weekend and rediscovered an old favorite. Marinating a bunch of chicken leg quarters in Wishbone overnight, seasoned and setup an indirect on my Weber kettle, fan controlled and a full basket of charcoal in the SNS....
Cooked at 275* steady, mopped with my Wishbone/Woody's mopping sauce about every 30 minutes or so and about 2 hours later pulled them off at about 165* internal. I know it gets to be cliche, but I had forgotten how good this method of cooking really is for chicken. Totally moist and juicy, bite through (not crisp) skin, great flavor down to the bone, some of the best I've made in a long time and I make a lot of chicken. Needed about 5 napkins to wipe the juice from my face and hands.....
Extremely simple but very effective method, give it a try if you're looking for something different. I think old H.J. Leggie would have given me two thumbs up !!! (Or more than likely found something else to chew me out about
)
TROUTMAN STEVE WISHING EVERYONE A HAPPY HOLIDAY !!! PEACE OUT !!!
Among a number of things in his life he was a small engine mechanic (working on anything from an outboard to a lawn mower) and an accomplished gardener. The guy grew cantaloupes the size of bowling balls. One day when I was rooting around his repair shed low and behold I saw this vessel, maybe 300 gallons that had been made into a stick burner. Yea old H.J. was somewhat of an accomplished pitmaster at some point in his life as well.
Well having cataracts so bad in both eyes that he could hardly see meant that repairing engines and cooking barbecue was pretty much ancient history for him. So I volunteered to drag the cooker out and clean it up and see if I could do some smoking. Now at that time I had no idea what real smoking was all about, I was an accomplished backyard cremator of meat on a grill.
So for my first cook I started a charcoal fire in the cooking chamber (what’s that fire box for??) and began to grill some chicken. Well as usual I managed to burn it up before it got done internally. So for my efforts old H.J. chews my ass out calling me a moron and shows me how to smoke using the offset fire box. He also told me that in Texas they cook chicken using Wishbone Italian dressing to keep it moist and preventing it from burning up.
Well after that, and for a lot of years that followed, I kind of perfected that method of marinating in Wishbone and mopping with a combination of the dressing and Woody’s marinade. As time went on I began learning other ways to cook chicken and kind of forgot that first lesson old H.J. had taught me.
Fast forward to recent times and I ran across this book on Amazon. Within it was a recipe that low and behold was exactly from back in the day, using Wishbone to marinate and mop chicken......
So what the heck I did some over the weekend and rediscovered an old favorite. Marinating a bunch of chicken leg quarters in Wishbone overnight, seasoned and setup an indirect on my Weber kettle, fan controlled and a full basket of charcoal in the SNS....
Cooked at 275* steady, mopped with my Wishbone/Woody's mopping sauce about every 30 minutes or so and about 2 hours later pulled them off at about 165* internal. I know it gets to be cliche, but I had forgotten how good this method of cooking really is for chicken. Totally moist and juicy, bite through (not crisp) skin, great flavor down to the bone, some of the best I've made in a long time and I make a lot of chicken. Needed about 5 napkins to wipe the juice from my face and hands.....
Extremely simple but very effective method, give it a try if you're looking for something different. I think old H.J. Leggie would have given me two thumbs up !!! (Or more than likely found something else to chew me out about
)TROUTMAN STEVE WISHING EVERYONE A HAPPY HOLIDAY !!! PEACE OUT !!!
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