Smoked Beer Braised BBQ Chicken and Cornbread Cakes

Aug 26 2015

Cooking a chicken this way has been in my mind for a long time. Years ago when my son was young we ate chicken at a National Mussleloading Shoot. The guy had two pots going as I remember, one with boiling water and one with BBQ sauce. He was selling half chickens and they were delicious. I thought I would smoke some and then braise to see how that came out.

I read several recipes on braised chicken and some braised in beer sounded good. Most of them they would brown up the chicken and then braise an hour in liquid. One guy said to use all legs and thighs; that breasts would get dry tasting and I could relate to that. All the grocery had today was thighs and no legs so I settled for a split chicken.

My plan was to smoke for 1 ½ hours and then braise in beer and BBQ sauce for 1 ½ hours. I had enough time for 2 ½ hours in brine to help keep the breasts moist. I cut the halves in quarters and got it in the brine. I rinsed and back in the fridge to air dry 1 ½ hours before smoking. I seasoned it with some Blues Hog Rub and smoked at 180 deg. for 1 ½ hours.

I poured some of the Yuengling beer in the pot and added the chicken. I poured in a cup of Kah’s BBQ sauce, ¼ cup of Blues Hog Tennessee Red sauce, some dried garlic and shallots and then poured the rest of the beer over all. I brought it to a boil and then down to a low simmer and covered with some parchment paper on top. It was on for 1 ½ hours.

Old Dave had me hungry for some cornbread cakes. I used my favorite cornbread mix, Miracle Maize sweet and used the recipe on the box for pancakes. I did them on my griddle outside on my gas burner. My first 4 were burnt so they went in the trash. The next 4 were almost burnt but tasted one and didn’t taste burnt so I went with those, I was hungry!

I had some left over yellow rice for a side. My wife had a breast and I had a leg thigh quarter. The chicken was great, moist, tender fall off the bone. Two hours of braising would not have hurt the chicken any. The skin was not eatable. The wife said the breast was good and moist too. I liked my sauce mix and the corncakes went well with it. Yes I had to have a little butter on my corn cake!

After eating I fried 4 more batches of cornbread cakes and got them just right. I had been waiting for them to bubble up like regular pancakes but this mix did not so just did by checking to see if they were ready to flip. These will taste good tomorrow with some bacon and eggs!

Brined , seasoned and ready to smoke

1 1/2 hours of smoke

In the pot

Ready to braise

Cornbread cakes

Chickens done

My supper

I did better frying up these