Grilled Chicken – like you ain’t never had before!

This is inspired by a recipe formulated in the 40s by a professor at Cornell University named Robert Baker. People use it a lot around here, but I never leave any recipe alone so over the years I have fiddled with it to the point that mine only gives the slightest nod to the original recipe. If you are interested you can Google “Cornell Chicken” and find it, but trust me, this is MUCH better.

This is a marinade, so you can’t decide at 4PM that you want to have it for dinner tonight. The chicken should marinate a minimum of 24 hrs and 48 is even better. It will work just fine for any cut of chicken. I prefer to use chicken thighs because I love them and they are usually pretty inexpensive. You can use whole chickens cut up or just legs or just breasts – even boneless, skinless breasts will work, but with some alteration in the directions, which will be noted below.

I use a 5 quart stock pot for this – it needs to be stainless steel, not iron or aluminum and has to fit in your fridge where it will reside for a day or two.

1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup water
1/4 cup balsamic or red wine vinegar [optional]
3 to 100 large garlic cloves, peeled, smashed, minced and pulverized etc.
3 tablespoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
2 tablespoons poultry seasoning
1 teaspoon onion powder
2 teaspoons oregano
1 teaspoon rosemary
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon basil
[measurements are for dry herbs – use about twice as much for fresh]
Whisk all of that together and then whisk in
1 beaten egg
To form an emulsion, gradually whisk in
1 cup olive oil

You can just throw it all in the pot and whisk it all together and it will work fine – but the emulsion tends to hold all the ingredients together more, so that the chicken is seasoned evenly.

This is enough marinade for at least 6 or 7 lbs of chicken – I think I used a 6 lb package of thighs this last time. It does not have to be totally immersed really – just go in a couple times and rearrange the pieces so that they get equal time being on the bottom. You do, of course, need to keep it refrigerated and it can go 3 whole days. I usually try for at least a full 48 hours. The original recipe has a lot more vinegar which tends to sort of turn it into chicken ceviche after 24 hours, which was the recommended amount of time – using water in place of half the vinegar allows a longer marinating time which is going to give it more flavor from the spices. If I have less time, I do increase the vinegar a bit. And for boneless, skinless breasts, you can put them in the marinade in the morning and they will be ready by dinner time.

At the end of the marinating time, you can grill it straight out of the fridge, but I like to precook it a bit in the marinade – usually about 20 minutes once it comes to a boil. If you are doing whole chickens, remove the breast pieces after only 10 minutes or they will get too done and dry out. If I were using all white meat – either bone in or boneless, I would not precook it all, because they just don’t take all that long to grill. In any case, get your grill really hot and start it grilling skin side down, turning several times and basting liberally with marinade as it cooks. Thighs that have been precooked will take about 15 minutes or so on a hot grill, but there are so many variables that I can’t give you any hard and fast times – grill them until they are done ok? This is good with any standard summer sides – potato or macaroni salad, beans, coleslaw, tossed salad, stir fried veg, garlic mashed potatoes [or mashatatoes as we call them around here these days] or any other thing your little heart desires. Left overs are fantastic cold – in fact I think I will go and grab some right now. Enjoy!