The key to this recipe is to use both Sous Vide and grilling. Sous Vide properly cooks the chicken keeping it juicy and tender. Grilling adds the smoke and crispiness.
We started with a big economy family / restaurant 10 pack of legs and thighs. This was split into 3 batches. Trim off any large chunks of fat and tail if present. These can cause flare ups while grilling. I leave the legs and thighs attached, but you could separate them for easier portioning for kids.
Season the chicken generously with granulated garlic, Penzey’s seasoned salt and Italian Seasoning. Place 3-4 in each bag. We kept one out for cooking today and froze the other 2 bags for later.
Sous Vide at 158F for 4 hours. Add 20 min if frozen.
Chill the chicken while still in the bag in ice water or throw in the snow bank for an hour. You could also do this a day or 2 ahead as well and refrigerate.
Heat grill to hot (~350-400 as indicated on the BGE). Too hot, and you just burn the skin off.
Remove the chicken from the bag, pulling off and saving the juice / gelatin. Make sure it is all off or when grilling, you will have an immediate flare-up.
Place on grill meat side down and grill for 3-5 min. Flip to skin side down and grill until crispy – approx an other 3-5 min.
In the winter, don’t forget to re-insert the sheet metal ring when closing the BGE. This reduces the occurrence of the gaskets from freezing the lid shut. If it does freeze shut it helps in melting it open. See: Cold Smoking and Frozen Smoker Entry from more info.
Mark Bronkalla