Crispy Carolina Chicken - Big Green Egg

Here's a delightful Barbecue Chicken with Skin Cracklins recipe courtesy of a tweak on a recipe I learned many moons ago. It's basically chicken skin fried in lard with a sprinkling of sea salt mixed through smoked Maryland Chicken. What's not to love!

Being accustomed to beef short ribs or brisket, I'm used to a longer smoke, but you can crank out Carolina Chicken in about 3-4 hours depending on the heat. The recipe is super simple;

Ingredients:

4 x skin-on Maryland Chicken quarters

4 x teaspoons (19gm) sea salt plus more to taste

1 cup (205gm) lard

1/2 cup (120mls) Western Style North Carolina BBQ sauce

Method:

1. Give your Maryland Chicken a quick rub (salt and pepper is fine, I use a texas smoke rub for the spice. You can also use mustard or bbq sauce to coat the chicken first if you like a bit more tang)
2. Lay the chicken in the smoker skin up for about 1-2 hrs or until internal temp reaches 165 °F /74 °C
3. Remove the skin from the chicken and fry it in about half an inch of lard in a saucepan until crispy and delicious looking.
4. Lay on paper towel and sprinkle salt to taste
5. Remove the chicken from the smoker and roughly chop. Also chop up the skin and mix through.
6. Add a West Carolina sauce (recipe below).

It's that easy - and it's a nice quick one for weekends where you don't want to be lurking by the smoker all day long.

Western-Style North Carolina Sauce

Ingredients:

1. Western-style North Carolina Sauce
2. Ingredients:
3. 3 cups (700ml) Apple Cider vinegar
4. 3/4 cup (180g) ketchup
5. 1 tablespoon (15ml) hot sauce (I use Sucklebusters Original BBQ Sauce)
6. 1 tablespoon (1.5g) light brown sugar
7. 1 teaspoon table salt
8. 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Method:

Put all ingredients into a glass jar or similar, tightly cover and shake vigorously. You can put it in the fridge indefinitely.