We can’t have a weekend without lighting something with charcoal, now can’t we?

Yesterday I decided that we need to do some chicken, but in a way I’ve never done it before. I wanted to try something different, since I ususally do it indirect on the OTP, or using a beer can.

Chicken agro dulce is a very nice stew recipe that give a nice fresh, a little bit sour, flavour. It’s worth it and actually it’s pretty simple to do, if you plan it well.

I started with 1 chicken and 2 big chick legs. I stuffed a quarter of an orange, some rosemary and a small stick of cinnamon. I did the same but with much less quantity under the skin of the legs. Especially the cinnamon gives a very nice taste to the meat. I’ve also did some basic BBQ rub on the chicken and let it rest for a while.

I’ve lit up 2 starters with coal and let that go to lite up quite good. Meanwhile I cut up the veggies, like carrot, red onions, mushrooms and celery. No garlic or salt or pepper, just nice fresh vegetables, that’s it.

Once that was cut up, I’ve started to create a nice sauce. Take a big jar of sundried tomatoes with oil and garlic and everything and put that in a blender with about 3 glasses of red wine and some red-wine vinegar (about 5 or 6 tablespoons). Blender it until it’s smooth and liquid. We’re going to cook the vegetables and the chicken in that moist.

Now, the preparation is ready and the starters are lit up. I’ve filled up the OTP with coals and now we are going to grill the chicken directly to make it nice and crispy on the outside. Keep turning, as it tends to burn rather quickly, of course. In the meantime I’ve put about 15 coals under the DO and let it heat up without the lid. The vegetables can be put in the DO, together with the rest of the rosemary and some good olive oil. Let it go and get nice and soft and DON’T forget the chicken! I almost did….

I’ve put the pieces of chicken indirectly under the dome, to not let it cool down too much before putting it in the sauce, and continued to work on the DO. Once the vegetables are nice and soft and a little bit brown, we continu with adding the sauce of sun dried tomatoes and wine. By now, it starts to smell really good!

Finally for the sauce, we’ve added a big hand of raisins. Lovely for a little sweet taste, together with the sour taste of the orange and the wine.

The moment the sauce starts boiling, I removed half of the coals, leaving about 8 under the DO, and I added the pieces of chicken. I dipped them all in the sauce and turned them around so all pieces of meat have the best taste of it all, and pushed them in the best I could to let it simmer. I’ve closed the lid and put about 15 coals on top.

After about 45 minutes with the lid closed, I’ve put some thick slices of bacon on the exposed pieces of chicken and closed the lid again. Let it go for about 15-20 minutes and we’re done.

We’ve cooked some fresh pasta and mixed it up well. It was very tasty and absolute worth an other go.