Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Pulled Chicken

Most everyone has heard of pulled pork, but did ya know you could pull chicken too?

I'm helping a friend cook for a BBQ fund raiser and in trying to minimize costs, I suggested serving pulled chicken for one of the meats instead of the usual quarter chicken you get on a bbq plate. That way instead of only getting 4 servings per whole smoked chicken, you are getting 6 or more 4 ounce portions.

But Zydeco Paws had an even better suggestion. Before I divulge his idea, check out his blog. It's kind of like NaBloPoMo, where bloggers try to post every day for a month. But his No Excuses BBQ blog is documenting his attempt to BBQ at least once a week for the entire 2009 calendar year.

He recommended using boneless thighs instead of whole birds to minimize picking around bones. Here's his post on it.

It worked great, IMHO. I followed his technique, but used a different rub.

165f....must me time to take them off right?Nope, these are thighs, we let this test batch go to 175 to 180.After they were done, we pulled them using a pair of forks, tossed them with just a hint of BBQ sauce and they were delicious on plain hamburger buns!This was a definite success and we'll be making it again. So if you want to STRETCH your chicken budget wise, trying PULLING it!

Thanks, ZP!