alex chiang: web 6.0

One of my favorite activities in life is grilling. There are few things as viscerally satisfying as heating meat over an open flame and then devouring it moments later. Of course, in this day and age, some silly humans have decided that they want to eat some vegetables too, and so we must satisfy them. With that in mind, I present a delectable spread of some tasty bbq treats.

Main Ingredients

• package of chicken legs (drumsticks)
• red pepper
• mushrooms (criminis are really good, but you can use whatever type you prefer)
• garlic heads
• couscous (optional)

Seasonings

• 1 egg
• bread crumbs
• soy sauce
• olive oil
• cooking sherry
• salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, brown sugar

Tools

• baster
• tin foil
• grill

Prepare the chicken legs first. Ideally, you want to marinate them for a half day to 24 hours, but you can get by on little as 45 minutes. Remove them from the store packaging and give them a rinse to clean them off. Next, place them into something big and flat — I prefer to use a Pyrex baking pan (kinda like the 13″ x 9″ thing you use for brownies). Drizzle soy sauce and sherry over the legs, enough so that the bottoms of the legs are sitting in about 5 millimeters of liquid. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and then add on a very sparse coating of brown sugar. Rotate the legs so that the side with the marinade is turned upwards, and season with salt, pepper, and brown sugar again. Cover the entire pan (using Saran wrap or similar) and let it sit in your fridge. Half way through your marinading time (ie, 6 hrs if you can spend a half day or 20 minutes if you only have 45 minutes), rotate the legs again.

Closer to actual grilling time, you’ll want to prep the veggies. Rinse the mushrooms and set them aside. Break one egg into a bowl and beat it like a red-headed stepchild (ie, as if you were making a scrambled egg). Place bread crumbs into another bowl. Proceed to bread the mushrooms up by dipping them in egg, and then rolling them around in the bread crumbs. Place the breaded mushies aside.

Next, rinse the red pepper and cut it in half. Rip off a piece of tin foil that is big enough to wrap the red pepper half, and place the pepper on it. Drizzle olive oil onto both the outside and the inside of the half, and spread it evenly with your fingers. Season with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper to taste. Wrap up each half and set them aside.

Last are the garlic heads. We’re gonna make roasted garlic, which is delightfully easy and super tasty. Cut off the top of the head such that you’re lopping off the top 1/4 of each clove. Drizzle olive oil over the exposed cloves. Your hands will probably be covered in oil, so go ahead and rub the outsides of the garlic heads to give them a thin coat of oil as well. Tear off a small piece of foil — enough to give each garlic head a little tin foil hat such that it covers up the cloves.

Ok, the prep work is done. The next step is crucial — crack open a beer and start drinking. In the summer months, I prefer something light and hoppy, such as Deschutes Brewery Mirror Pond or O’Dell’s 5 Barrel.

Heat up the grill to medium heat and put the garlic heads onto the top level. Wait about 10 minutes, and then put the red pepper halves on the top level, rounded concave side down. After another 5 minutes go ahead and lay all the drumsticks on the bottom level of the grill. The key is to keep a nice medium heat — not too hot or else the chicken will get burned, and not too low or else you’ll be there forever. After about 10 minutes, go ahead and turn each drumstick. Use your baster and squirt the marinade over the chicken. At this time, you can put the mushrooms on the top level as well.

After another 10 minutes are up, you can rotate the drumsticks as necessary to even up the cooking. Each leg should have a very nice browning at this point. The chicken should be totally cooked after a total of 25 minutes from the time you put them on the grill, and everything else will be done too. Of course, you should cut into a leg or two to check to see that they are actually done. Hopefully, they are super juicy and tender, and not burned. The mushrooms will definitely be done, but the breading will not turn golden brown as if they were fried. Don’t worry, they’re gonna be good.

(5 minutes before you pull everything off the grill, you can optionally start some couscous if you feel that you must have a starch with your meal.)

Now you’re ready to enjoy your feast. Go ahead and take the tin foil hats off the garlic heads and unwrap the peppers, being sure to savor the juices running out. Eating is obviously self-explanatory, but for those who haven’t grilled or roasted garlic before, a suave way to get the cloves out of the head is to place the head on a hand towel, and cup the entire thing in your hand. Then, gently squeeze your hand together and cloves should start popping out of the head. They’ll still be garlicky-flavored (obviously) but the grilling/roasting will caramelize them and turn them sweetish. Eat them plain or use them to season whatever else you want in the spread. Yum!

Celebrate in your manliness.