Recipe of the month-Whole Smoked Lemon Slice Chicken

 

Whole Smoked Lemon Slice Chicken

If you want to impress your guests with a chicken that looks just as good as it tastes, then our recipe for Whole Smoked Lemon Slice Chicken is exactly what you need. You’ll choose between spatchcock or whole chicken, then coat it with a simple seasoning blend and stick on slices of lemon. When it comes out your chicken will have crispy skin, and juicy meat, and the whole time those lemon slices have been “basting” your chicken as it smokes.

Ingredients

• Whole Chicken (spatch cocked or whole, your choice!)
• Olive Oil or similar binder
• 2 Lemons
• 2-parts Kosher Salt
• 2-parts Coarse Black Pepper
• 1.5-parts Dillweed
• 1-part Marjoram (substitute Thyme if you can't find marjoram)
• 1-part Dried Rosemary Leaf (preferably crushed)
• 1-part Onion Powder
• 1-part Garlic Powder

Directions

• Start your pellet grill or smoker and set it to 220F.
• If you’re going to spatchcock your chicken, now is the time. The flavor will be relatively the same either way, but it will cook much faster if you do.
• Scroll to the bottom of the recipe for more information on how to spatchcock.
• Pat dry your chicken, remove the innards and trim off any fat, extra skin or sinew that won’t be appetizing. Make sure to pull any leftover pinfeathers at this point as well.
• In a small bowl combine all your dry ingredients to make your seasoning.
• Cut your lemons in half, setting aside 3 halves for later. Cut the remaining half into small circular slices.
• Coat your chicken in a light layer of oil and squeeze the juice from one half of lemon over it as well.
• Now apply a light layer of your seasoning mix to the chicken. If you’ve spatchcocked it remember to season the backside as well.
• Place your lemon slices across the entire chicken, they should be thin enough to bend and stick to the chicken without popping up or falling off. Try to get roughly 5-8 lemon slices on the bird.
• Carefully place your chicken on the pellet smoker and allow it to smoke until it’s reached 165F internally.
• Now kick the temperature up to at least 375F our goal is to finish grilling the chicken so we can have nice crispy skin.
• If we’d let the chicken finish cooking at 220F then it would have ended up with rubbery skin, and we guarantee that is not what you want.
• While you have the grill open squeeze another half of lemon over the top of the chicken.
• Remove your chicken once it’s reached 165F internally and allow it to rest for 5-7 minutes before serving. Squeeze the final lemon half over the chicken at the table for people before you cut into it.
• While you can serve it with the lemon slices on still, often people don’t like the texture when it’s time to eat.
• Pro Tip: Serve this with our smoked rosemary potatoes to balance out the citrus in the chicken with a nice hearty starch side dish.

How to Spatchcock a Whole Chicken

1. Start with the chicken breast-side down making sure that the legs are pointing toward you on your cutting board.
2. Next, you’ll want to cut out the backbone. You can do this using poultry shears or carefully with a very sharp knife.
3. Cut along the side of the backbone, also known as the parson’s nose, to remove it, cutting through the rib bones as you go.
4. Once you’ve removed the backbone, if you want to remove some the additional bones like the ribcage can do that now.
5. Now flip the bird over. You’ll want to flatten the breastbone with the heel of your hand so that the meat is even across the entire bird. You’ll need to press down on each side of the breastbone until you hear a crack.

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