Tonight, I tried an experiment with cooking chicken on the barbecue grill. In the past, I have never been happy with my results trying to cook chicken breasts on the grill when they've been marinated in barbecue sauce. I need a high heat setting in order to get the temperature up in the grill and get the chicken cooked all the way through, but the barbecue sauce burns and makes the outside of the breast really tough, and the inside is really dried out. I've never been completely satisfied with the results.
So I had an idea tonight. Some of you who are more experienced in cooking or using your barbecue grills may laugh at this and say, "I can't believe he didn't know that." Maybe I should start reading up on barbecue tips on the internet.
In any case, here's what I did tonight that really worked out well. After LW had marinated the chicken breasts in the barbecue sauce, I pulled out the roll of aluminum foil. LW had some sort of "no-stick" aluminum foil, and I don't know if that played a roll in it (no pun intended), but it worked and the chicken did NOT stick to the foil. I wrapped the two chicken breasts up in foil and rolled the ends together to make it a sealed pouch.
I put the barbecue grill on a high heat, and the temperature gage read in the ballpark of 500F. Normally I have to cook chicken for 15 to 18 minutes to get it to cook all the way through, so I put the foil pouch with the chicken in it on the grill for 18 minutes to be sure. Twice I flipped the packet over in the middle of that time, but I'm not sure if that was absolutely necessary.
When I took the packet off the grill and started to open it, I got a little nervous. My nostrils detected a smell of charring and burnt stuff. However, when I got the packet fully open, I found that while the barbecue sauce was burnt, it was just laying in the foil and not stuck to the chicken. The chicken itself was absolutely fine! It was tender and juicy all the way through, and the meat was almost falling apart.
Why the barbecue sauce burnt but didn't stick to the chicken, I don't know. I was really pleased with the results though.
Monday morning afterthought: Does putting the chicken in a foil pouch defeat the purpose of using the barbecue grill? I mean, I could put the foil pouch in the oven and get the same results, right? Help me out. What am I supposed to be getting out of my food cooked on the barbecue grill? What does exposure to open flames give it that just baking in the electric oven doesn't?
Put chicken breasts in ziploc bag with olive oil & paprika 1T - let sit there for 30 min to 1hr. Heat grill to high heat. Throw breasts on grill, cook on one side and flip over (about 3-4min.) Put BBQ sauce on the cooked side that is "up" away from heat. Cook another 3 min. turn heat OFF and flip again - sauce the most recently cooked side wait about 1 min. Remove chicken to plater and let "rest" for about 5 min. Serve - it will be yummy AND moist AND "saucy".
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