- Hey, barbecue lovers.
ArnieTex here
and today we're gonna be making
some grilled chicken fajita tacos.
We're gonna walk you through the whole process.
I've already deboned five chicken thighs for you.
And all we're gonna now is we're gonna go ahead
and season them up with my little SPG
that we're gonna get on the market here pretty soon.
This is a really good ratio of salt, pepper and garlic.
Here, when we cook at home,
we like to just eat simple food.
It's not anything like our competition food,
which is a big giant wow experience for the judge.
This is for us to eat and enjoy at home.
It's a little simpler and we love salt, pepper, garlic
on everything, really.
So, that's what we're gonna season our chicken thighs with.
Once they're all seasoned up,
we're gonna take them out, put them on the Weber.
We're gonna grill them with skin side down first.
We wanna give that skin
a little bit of crispy toastiness to it.
Then we're gonna flip it over.
We're gonna char the meat side and make the meat
get a little bit of that smoky goodness and flavor.
We're gonna put a little pico de gallo
and have a little bit of guacamole on the side, too,
or maybe in the taco.
Either way, we're gonna show you
how to make a really good chicken taco.
First thing we're gonna do is we're gonna take
these chicken thighs that I've already deboned.
We're gonna season them up.
And when I do that, I like to line them up side by side
just to do them all at the same time if I can.
I have five of them so I'm gonna put two and two,
and also two and two here,
and one more over here at the end.
We're gonna season all of these thighs up,
make them look yummly, yum, yum, yum.
Now, the other thing I like to do
just to get the rub to stick to the meat,
and it also adds a little flavor
and it helps to break down the rub a little quicker,
is I like to take a little bit of Parkay,
or I can't believe it's not butter, the yellow one.
Either one works fine but get a little bit of oil on there.
(Parkay hissing and clattering)
And then we're gonna take our SPG.
Now, this is my own proprietary SPG.
And you can use whatever you like.
I highly recommend you try mine. (laughs)
All right, we're gonna season them nice and even.
You wanna hold this shaker
somewhere about eight or 10 inches high
so that you get nice even coating onto your meat.
We're gonna pat that down a little bit. (pats chicken)
We're gonna let that sit for about five minutes.
Then I'm gonna come back, flip them over
and do the skin side as well.
All right, it's been about five minutes.
I'm gonna flip these over, actually onto each other.
So, that way I don't lose any rub
going to the cutting board.
The rub stays on the chicken.
I'm gonna flip that one over this way.
I'm gonna flip this one over this way as well
on top of the other piece.
And this one I'm gonna have to flip the other way,
either way.
We're gonna squirt them again
with a little bit of this Parkay butter.
(Parkay hissing and clattering)
Doesn't take a whole lot.
Just give it a little squirt.
Put a little SPG on there.
You can see that I've got a nice, generous amount of pepper
in my salt, pepper, garlic.
If you're a pepper lover,
I promise you're gonna like my salt, pepper, garlic rub.
All right, we're gonna season this side, too.
You notice I flipped both chicken thighs together.
So, I've got one on the bottom already seasoned.
Now, I can season the other one here on top.
All right. That looks good, honey.
I'm ready to cook some chicken. What do you think?
We're gonna go fire up our Weber.
And as soon as that fire's nice and set
in just the right temperature,
which is gonna be about 350 degrees or so,
we're gonna take the chicken thighs out there,
we're gonna grill them, then we're gonna come back
and show you how to make some awesome,
amazing grilled chicken tacos.
Stay with us.
All right, friends.
Now, we've got our fire settled down,
got it down to about 350 degrees.
I'm gonna take my chicken thighs,
I'm gonna lay them with the skin side down first.
Hooh, I hear that little sizzle.
That sounds good.
I wanna expose all the skin that I can to the fire.
We wanna crisp that skin up a little bit.
Now, sometimes your fire might be a little too hot.
You can take a little tool, if you have one of those gizmos
or you can take your tongs,
if you have these good strong tongs,
and you can rotate the chicken away from the heat.
In this case, that's the way I've set up my Weber.
I've got a dual zone heat here.
I've got direct fire and indirect fire,
but I do want to crisp up the skin first.
So, I'm gonna go ahead and leave that over here.
(metal clangs)
All right and I choked down my exhaust and my inlet
to control the fire.
Bring it down a little bit lower in temperature.
You can see right there
where I have closed down the exhaust quite a bit,
about halfway, maybe a little less than halfway.
I've choked down the bottom, the inlet,
to about a quarter inch open, alt and that is it.
So, we're regulating the air flow to control the heat.
All right, I can see a lot of smoke.
We had a pretty good hot fire there.
I'm gonna rotate my chickens,
but before I do, I'm gonna look at them.
There you go. You see that?
Getting a nice little toast.
Fire's not too hot.
Fire's just about right.
Look at that.
Ooh wee. Look at that, nice.
(chicken sizzling)
Beautiful, beautiful.
I don't leave the lid open too long
because it will catch on fire quick
with all that chicken grease.
I'm gonna open up the air just a little bit more.
All right, here we go.
It's time to flip them.
Take another look at them.
I'd say they're gonna be looking pretty good.
Yep, yep, yep, yep.
Look at that beautiful, nice golden color.
Yeah, baby.
That looking good.
Ooh, got a little char on that one.
I wanna move it over.
Got little too much char on that one.
We wanna move that one over.
So, we're gonna move these over here.
Put these meat side down
right there where it's the hot spot.
And we're gonna let these cook a little slower on this side
so they don't overcook.
There we go.
Think I got to slow that air down a little bit more again.
(chicken sizzling)
(whistles)
All right, we got a really nice char going here.
Chicken thighs are done.
I just checked them with the Thermapen.
They're probing 180 degrees. They are perfect.
Look at that.
Just frigging gorgeous, woops, that's hot.
Gorgeous looking piece of meat.
All right, barbecue lovers.
We got our chicken cooked on the Weber kettle grill.
We gave the skin a nice little char.
Made it nice and crispy. (laughs)
That adds a lot of flavor.
Did that on all the chicken thighs.
Couple of them got a little more toasted than I wanted.
But nothing wrong with that, a good char is good flavor.
Put a real pretty color here
on the meat side, too, as you can see,
just a gorgeous good-looking piece of chicken.
Just a really nice looking piece of meat.
I've pulled them off of the grill.
They were sitting about 180-85 degrees.
It's good to take chicken thighs up a little bit higher
'cause they have a lot of connective tissue
and collagen and stuff
and you want that stuff to soften up, too.
So, now we're just gonna slice up
some of these chicken thighs
and we're gonna make some really good chicken taco.
We're gonna set that aside for y'all.
Let's keep slicing here.
Man, you hear that little crunch?
(chuckles) Man, that sounds good.
(whistles) That skin's nice and crispy. Look at that.
Oh, couldn't resist.
Sorry, folks. I just couldn't resist.
We're gonna get us a little plate here.
Let me get my little chicken in my taco here.
Right here, here we go.
Might be a little much.
I like big tacos, I really do.
I call them tacones
'cause they're big and stout and full of meat,
full of goodness.
We're gonna put this on this little plate here
so I don't make too much of a mess.
I'm gonna get me a little bit of pico de gallo.
I'm gonna get me some of the fresh, delicious,
homemade pico de gallo.
I'm gonna drop some of that on top.
Yum, yum.
Will take me a little bit of avocado,
fresh homemade avocado as well.
Now I like avocado
so I'm gonna put a little bit more in there.
Oh, yeah, baby.
Now, one of the things you wanna do
is add a little bit more flavor to your avocado.
Avocado, we always add a little bit of lime juice,
a little bit of salt, little salt, pepper.
In my case, I like a little bit of SPG on there.
Add that extra little flavor in there
and a little squeeze of lime on the whole thing.
Yeah, buddy.
Little bit of cheese, not too much
'cause I wanna taste the chicken.
I just want a little bit of cheese in there.
That's all I'm looking for.
All right, let's see if this thing's any good.
(taco crackles)
Mm mmm. Good stuff.
Man, I'm here to tell you, my barbecue loving friends,
the only thing to make that taco a little bit better
is a nice cold Budweiser or a Lone Star.
Today, we got Budweiser.
Mmm.
Friends, if you like this recipe video,
make sure you like, comment and share this video.
And also subscribe, ring that bell
so you don't miss any videos from ArnieTex.
We've got more coming on the way.
Also there's a link down there
for my online barbecue classes.
Make sure you check that out.
We've got everything in there from the beginner
to the novice, to the pro, to the professional competitor.
Keep the smoke light and make it work.
Boom.
All right, now one cool thing you can do
with the leftover bones when you debone your chicken thighs,
you're gonna have a little bit of skin,
a little bit of fat, a little bit of meat on there.
You wanna put these into a Ziploc bag
and you can either freeze them and use them later.
Or you can do it as soon as you're done,
depends on your personal timeline.
I like to put them in a Ziploc
'cause we're recording video today
and I'm just gonna save them.
I'm gonna stick them in the freezer
and then I'm gonna take them out later
and we're gonna make an awesome chicken stock.
These are fantastic for chicken stock.
You can use it in soups, stews,
injections for your competition.
You can do a lot of different things
with that stock to flavor your food.
So, that's just a pro tip for you guys,
something you can do with the bones
after you debone all your chicken thighs.