Grilling chicken for a cookout is often overlooked for the sake of convenience. Hamburgers, sausage, and hot dogs can all be thrown on a grill and cooked in a few minutes with minimum hassle or preparation. Chicken on the other hand takes a little more work. It also takes a little more skill. Hot dogs are already fully cooked. They just need to be heated to an acceptable temperature and then charred to a doneness your guests prefer. There are always people who want them charred black so that with each bite the casing cracks away. But chicken is not so forgiving. While it is an incredibly popular meat to cook, it is often baked because you can set it and forget it. Sometimes it turns out dry. Sometimes it turns out just fine. You don’t have to worry about food poisoning or salmonella because you cooked it for the time it says on the packaging.
Grilling chicken is a little more tricky than baking it. Grilling chicken, like anything is easiest on a gas grill. Cooking anything properly is all about seasoning and heat control. Cooking something thicker than a burger over direct heat is going to take some time and attention. To make your life easier grill chicken thighs or legs. If you need or want white meat then bone in breasts are your best bet. No matter which part of the chicken you choose to grill, start skin side down. You are going to turn the chicken several times while it cooks so that one side does not burn. If you start skin side down and let the skin cook though before you try and flip or turn the chicken, it won’t stick to the grill. This goes for after your flip it too. Let the opposite side cook for a few minutes before trying to move the meat. The cooked outer layer will not stick to the grill. Once you have a nice layer cooked you can flip and turn the meat all you want.
The reason I prefer bone in chicken breast over the way too popular boneless, is because they taste better and are easier to cook on the grill. Grill is going to cook with both direct and indirect heat. Meaning once the lid is closed it will act like an oven. If you have cooked the skin side so that it no longer sticks and then flip the chicken breast so that the ribs are on the bottom, then you can almost cook the chicken as if it were in an inefficient oven. You will still need to check on the chicken and flip it a few times but you will be less likely to end up with dry or under cooked chicken. You also will not have to worry as much about burning the seasoning or sauce on the chicken. Anything other than salt is going to quickly burn once it comes into contact with the grill grates. Also buy a meat thermometer and take the chicken off a few degrees before it is done. It will finish cooking while it rests. Easy peasy.
There are three reasons why you would want to use this next method. First , you are still hesitant about ruining the chicken. Second, your grill is too small to fit all of the chicken you need to cook. Third, you want to simulate a tandoor. What’s a tandoor you ask? This is a word you might have seen on menus but just assumed that it was a method of cooking or a type of seasoning. You would be partially correct if you assumed the first. Technically a tandoor is an oven. Generally an earthen oven popular from the Caucuses to Bangladesh, sometimes built underground or just as a large free standing clay vessel above ground. The tandoor is used to cook almost anything. A large fire is started in the center and as the flames die down and the heat dissipates different foods are inserted. Flat breads and some meats are stuck to the sides for a few minutes to cook while the oven is still hot. Other cuts of meat are skewered or hung from the lid.
So what does this have to do with the third method. Well the nice weather you get to cook in does not actually impart any flavor. Grilling imparts a particular char flavor on whatever we are cooking. It is not the same as a sear from a pan. When you hear the sizzle of the juices hitting the hot coals or the metal over the flames on a gas grill, you are listening to the juices turn to steam. That steam then rises back onto the meat. This is what is so special about grilling or cooking over an open flame. A similar thing happens in a tandoor since the fire is started in the center of the oven where the coals stay until completely cooled. If you want to try and simulate this for the above reasons, all you have to do is bake your chicken until it is almost done. In the meantime fire up your charcoal grill, (Don’t bother if you have a gas grill) without lighter fluid (don’t use lighter fluid on your gas grill either). Make sure you get that grill nice and hot. Hotter than you normally would. Once the chicken is almost cooked through bring it out to the grill to finish. Since the chicken is almost done all you have to do is let the outside char. Each batch should only take a few minutes. A good friend of mine uses this method to simulate tandoor cooking and it is a damn fine method.