Eastern North Carolina-Style Chicken and Sauce

Recipe

Jul 3

Written By Fresh

This most recent addition to the Skylight menu came – against Bruce’s wishes – in about 2010. It’s hard to understand, but sometimes folks don’t want whole hog barbeque. I hate to say it to the barbeque purists, but this chicken is more about the sauce than the chicken. We cook it over wood coals on the pit unadulterated, then it gets a bath in our chicken sauce, which is a sweet vinegar and mustard sauce.

We have a similar item on the menu at Sam Jones BBQ, but we do it a bit differently: the chickens are brined and cooked the exact same way, but they are rubbed liberally with Rub Potion No. Swine before cooking, and we don’t serve them with a sauce. Do it either way you like, or go crazy and do both the rub and the sauce.

Recipe

Eastern North Carolina-Style Chicken and Sauce

Makes 8 servings

Ingredients:

Brine

1 gallon water
1 ½ cups sugar
1 cup kosher salt
1 gallon ice

Chicken

2 whole chickens, about 3 ½ pounds each

Chicken Sauce

½ cup sugar
¼ cup canned pineapple juice
3 tablespoons yellow mustard
½ teaspoon chili powder
2 cups ketchup
1 cup apple cider vinegar
½ cup Pepsi
¼ cup Texas Pete Hot Sauce
1 ½ teaspoons soy sauce
1 ½ teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 ½ teaspoons lime juice
1 ½ teaspoons lemon juice

Directions:

To make the brine, in a 10-quart pot, bring the water to a boil, then turn off heat. Add the sugar and salt and stir until dissolved. Pour in the ice to chill the mixture. If you’d rather not bother with the ice, make the brine with 2 gallons of water, and do it far enough ahead so it will be completely cooled before adding the raw chicken.

To prepare the chicken, split each bird open at the breast rather than down the backbone. I guess you’d call it reverse spatchcocking. We do it that way because that’s the way we’ve always done it. Sorry, I’m not completely immune to such reasoning. Submerge the chicken in the brine and refrigerate, covered, overnight or for at least 8 hours.

Heat a pit or smoker to 250º. Remove the chicken from the brine and pat dry with paper towels. Discard the brine.

Note: If you’d like to replicate the chicken from Sam Jones BBQ, at this point, apply about 1 tablespoon of Rub Potion No. Swine to each side of the chicken. Sprinkle it all over the skin of the chicken and inside the cavity. (Try our SPICY Rub Potion No. Swine too!)

Place the splayed chicken bone side down on the pit, directly over the coals. Let them cook for about 60 to 70 minutes, then flip the birds. It will take about 60 more minutes on this side, depending on the size of the chickens. Remove the chickens from the heat when the internal temperature is 165ºF.

To make the sauce, whisk together the sugar, pineapple juice, mustard, and chili powder in a 4- to 5-quart saucepan over medium heat.

Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. Turn the heat to high and bring to a boil. Just after the sauce reaches a boil, remove from the heat. Allow the sauce to cool slightly and transfer to a heatproof serving bowl.

To serve, quarter the chickens, arrange on a serving plate, and cover with the sauce. Serve additional sauce in a bowl on the side. Of course, at Sam Jones BBQ we don’t bother with the sauce.