Grilled Chicken and Vegetables

Grilled Chicken and Vegetables 

I have been planning/thinking about this meal for a few days already because I wanted to grill the chicken and at the same time put a little twist to it and cook the vegetables under the chicken. This way the drippings from the chicken would add nice flavoring in the vegetables. Sweet! 

I got up early this glorious Saturday morning and went to ShopRite in Montgomery NY to buy three vegetables for the meal. I was going to buy brussels sprouts, zucchini, and baby pearl onions. The day was starting out rather well. The coffee I was drinking was hot, WVKR was playing hot Pennsylvania polka music

and I had a lot of things on my mind.

The onions at ShopRite were fresh, looked great and I bought 1.5 lbs of them. Much to my surprise they were only $.99/lb. Usually these go for $1.99/lb.

I wasn't too thrilled with the sprouts but don't forget that it's January and I am in New York. The sprouts came in a ice cream-type of cup and I found the packaging very strange.



As I got in the car to go home I took this picture. It was very cold this morning and I took my red, Red Hat, hat to keep my head warm. I have the hat for 18 years. It happens to be my favorite hat and company.

When I got home I got ready for the prepping of the food. To start with I always make sure that the sink is clean. I always put in there a small plastic bag in the sink for the garbage. It's a lot easier for me to place all garbage in a plastic bag that is in front of me, rather than use the garbage can every two minutes. This way I don't make a mess on the floor and all the garbage is nicely gathered in the plastic bag that I can close tightly and the kitchen will not stink later on. Sometimes I think a lot like SNL's Cooking with the Anal Rententive Chef but I think it's worth it.

Ahhhhh! Now I am ready for the show. I gathered the veggies and chicken and I am ready to prep them.

First I worked on the sprouts. Because the sprouts are dense it would take much longer to cook them in indirect heat. So, after washing them I  cut them in half to reduce the cooking time.

Then, it was time to tackle the pearl onions. I remember working at Salvatore's Italian Gardens in Buffalo New York, oh about 28 years ago, where I was serving Vodka Gibsons with pickled pearl onions. Good times. 

I cleaned the onions and cut those in half too.

I like garlic but I don't use too much of it because the taste can be overwhelming and for that reason I creamed just one clove.

Let's not forget the zucchini. Because I thought that the zucchini would cook much faster, I sliced it a bit thicker. Please note the ends of the zucchini in the upper left side of the following picture. That is NOT garbage. It will be refrigerated and used later on for my vegetable stock.

Then it was time for the chicken. I purchased two whole breasts a couple of days ago from Adams in Newburgh. I washed them, remove the bones, and finally split them. In the following picture you can see that I placed in the garbage bag in the sink the wrapping material from the chicken breasts. The bones are NOT in the garbage.

Here we are. The boneless half-breasts is placed in a bowl while the bones are awaiting for the next processing step. I rubbed the chicken breasts with some olive oil, sprinkled some oregano on them, placed them in a glass bowl, covered it with foil and placed that in the refrigerator.

Now I am ready to process the bones. I have these small, plastic containers that I use for the various stocks, mainly vegetable and chicken. Here you can see the chicken bones waiting to go into the container. The container has a few bones form the last time I cleaned chicken. looks like I have enough bones.chicken parts for the stock.

I will be using the following ingredients:

• pepper
• rosemary
• onion powder
• oregano
• olive oil

By the way, this oregano was bought from Syros, Greece during the last family trip. Of course, you are not allowed to bring spices when returning to the US but I/we did it anyway.

I placed all the vegetables in a non-stick cooking tray

and

• sprinkled about 1 tablespoon pepper, 
• one teaspoon rosemary, 
• one teaspoon onion powder, 
• drizzled about 1/3 cup olive oil,
• and finally about 1/2 tablespoon oregano.

Look at this beautiful picture. Look at it, I tell ya. All the veggies getting cozy with each other.

Wait! I am not done yet! I took a few sun-dried tomatoes, chopped them and sprinkled them on the veggies.

Then, I cut two sheets of aluminum to use it as a shield for the vegetables. I will place the veggies UNDER the grate, NEXT to the coals and I don't want the veggies closest to the coals to burn up.

Then I had to decide the size of the pan for the veggies. I bought two different size pans (only 75 cents each) and tried them inside the grill to see which one would fit best. The deeper one won.

Here is the makeshift shield all put together.Sometimes I think the name Cunning Odysseus (polytropos Odysseas) would be more fitting for me instead of Evaggelos.

I cleaned the ashes from bottom of the grill.

and got Achilles ready.

Here I am giving it a test run to make sure the pan its nicely in the grill. Also, you can see the two squares drenched with water and vegetable oil for cleaning the grate. After I place the hot coals on the grate I wait a few minutes for the internal temperature of the grill to get to 300 degrees. Then I use the damp paper towels to clean the grate. It works like a charm.

An hour before the burn I had placed an aluminum container close to the grill with water and four larger wood chips. When I went to get them the water was frozen solid. Yes, it was cold out there.

When I placed the chicken breasts on the hot grate I placed them over the hot side of the grill for about 2.5 minutes, turned the chicken over and cooked them another 2.5 minutes to sear the breasts AND give the skin some definition.

This is the money shot. About 30 minutes into it, the fire is going full blast, the chicken is beginning to brown and I am using the handy grate flap to stir the veggies. Sweet!

Here is a picture of the veggies cooking alone after I removed the chicken. I moved the veggies on top of the grill to cook a little faster.

The chicken cooked for 40 minutes and I kept the veggies for five extra minutes. The last ten minutes I used my BBQ sauce and brushed it on the chicken. Here is a picture of the final product. The chicken was just perfect but the veggies could have used another 10 minutes of cooking. The fact that the veggies were under the chicken added a great flavor to them. That idea of mine worked well and the results were great. Next time I will try this meal, it will be perfect.

I inhaled the food in seconds. My nose still hurts.

 Here is a picture of the veggies. They had lots of definition and tasted GREAT!

I have one more comment to make about the grilling process. The temperature stays nicely constant and you have to add coals only if you are cooking a large piece of meat. Having a remote control temperature gauge will help a lot when cooking large pieces of meat for long periods of time.

Ya sou!