﻿Hey guys, welcome back - today we’re making chicken lollipops on the Weber Kettle.
I’ll even show you how to make a homemade Mango Habanero sauce to go with them. Let’s get to it!
Alright, so we’ll start out by prepping the chicken. Go ahead and pat the legs dry,
this will help ‘em be a little easier to handle while trimming.
Now to trim the legs into what’s become known as chicken lollipops,
you want to make a cut right here at the bottom of where the meat hits the bone. Just work your
way around the leg like this, making sure to cut all the way through to the bone.
Once you have the lower portion separated, just work it down and kind of pop it over the end of
the bone. The goal here is to clean the leg bones up for presentation - just pull off what you can,
and scrape a knife over any bits that still need to be removed.
Let’s be honest - that lower part of the chicken leg is not really the
portion that you are looking to eat anyway. Now once the bone is cleaned up to your liking,
you’ll want to pull the meat down a little bit, to form it up as a base for the leg
to sit up vertically while it smokes. If it doesn’t want to sit up for you right away,
don’t worry - just make a cut on any spots that may need flattening. The goal is for it to be able
to stand upright on it’s own like this. As you trim the legs, it can be helpful to
keep some kitchen shears around for any tendons that may not have gotten
totally clean sliced with the knife. Once you’ve trimmed all the chicken legs,
it’s time to season ‘em up. Give ‘em a light coating with some olive oil first. This helps
the seasoning stick, and will help you get some pretty color while the chicken smokes.
For the seasoning blend, I’m just using a basic mix of salt, black pepper, garlic powder,
and paprika. Remember, we’ll be making some spicy mango habanero sauce for this - so you
don’t really need to go too complicated with the initial seasoning. It’s ideal to let the
seasoned chicken sit in the fridge overnight if you’ve got the time, this will give the
seasoning a chance to work as a dry brine. While that works it’s magic, you can make the
Mango Habanero Hot sauce. This everything you’ll want to have on hand for that. To really richen
the flavor of the Habanero peppers, I like to roast them first on the grill.
I used some apple wood chips in the smoker box - but peach would work well too! Preheat the
grill to somewhere around 400 degrees, and toss on those peppers. You’re really just wanting to
get some roasted color on the outside of ‘em. A couple minutes per side should do just fine.
Grilling them before making the sauce adds a nice touch of smokeyness, and brings a little more of
the natural sweetness out of the habanero. Now just set those aside, and it’s time to saute
the remaining ingredients for the sauce. Over medium heat, toss in a chopped yellow onion.
Cook that down until it starts to carmelize, and add in five cloves of minced garlic. Just
stir that around until the garlic becomes really fragrant - then you can add in the chopped mango.
Let those flavors wake up over the heat a little bit - then go ahead and deglaze the
pan with three quarters of a cup of apple cider vinegar. Follow that with a cup of mango nectar..
And of course - the roasted habaneros. Now in addition to the kick you’ll get from the vinegar,
I also like to add the juice of a lime - I think it really brings
out the fresh flavors in this sauce. And to round out the heat a little bit,
I also like to add four tablespoons of brown sugar. The sugar just lets you taste the flavors
on the front end more, before the heat kicks in. Now for the salt, somewhere around 2 teaspoons is
a good starting point. You can always add more later, to taste - after the sauce reduces down.
Let everything simmer on low for about 30 minutes, or until it’s reduced down about like this.
Allow it to cool a bit, then blend it until smooth. I thought I was going to strain it after
blending, but I ended up liking the consistency of it like this - it’s up to you, if you want a
thinner sauce - pass it through a strainer. Alright, so as far as the grill setup - I’m
wanting to preheat for smoking temps of around two hundred and seventy five degrees.
I use about a quarter of a chimney starter of lit coal, poured over a bed of unlit coal.
For the smoking wood, I’m using apple - but really any fruit wood pairs well. Since the coals will
be gradually catching in different areas, just kind of spread the wood chunks out a bit.
I’m using the barbecue dragon heat deflector today, so I don’t need to bank the coals to one
side. But if you are smoking without a deflector, just make sure to bank the coals to the opposite
side from where you will be smoking the chicken. The key here is indirect heat. For piece of mind,
I like to put a temp probe at grid level in the area where I will be smoking the chicken.
Vent settings for smoking on a kettle are usually about a quarter of the way open on the bottom
and about half of the way open on the top vent. Let it stabilize like this and If you find you
need more heat, just open the bottom vent a little closer to half of the way open.
Once you’re cruising at smoking temps - it’s time to get these chicken lollipops on the grill.
Another advantage to trimming the chicken legs up like this is that you can really
fit a lot more food on the grill if you need to for larger gatherings.
Of course, wings would be great with the habanero sauce as well - but I do like that chicken legs
are good bit more filling than trying to feed a crowd with wings. I’ve just got 9 chicken
legs on the grill today, but the 22 inch kettle could definitely fit more if you need to.
I like to let these smoke for about an hour before checking in to baste.
After an hour, they are lookin’ pretty. I just use some melted butter for the baste,
keep in mind you’ll be dunking these in the Habanero sauce in a little bit- so you don’t
have to get too complicated with the baste. As for internal temp, it’s best to shoot
for 175F for chicken legs. Of course, chicken is safe to eat at 165 degrees,
but letting it finish more around 175 helps the fat render more, for a better texture. At about
an hour and 15 minutes into the cook, go ahead and warm up about a cup of the hot sauce. We’ll
be blending in butter once it’s warm - so I like to save any remaining sauce to keep in a bottle
in the fridge without the butter for whatever you want to add some heat to in the future.
Once the sauce is warm, stir in a stick of diced butter until you have a smooth,
velvety sauce. I use unsalted butter because the chicken does have that base layer of seasoning on
it - you can always add salt to taste after blending in the butter if you want to.
Using something tall, like a coffee cup for dunking the chicken, makes it really easy to get
an even coat on all sides. I love the vibrant yellow color the mango brings to this sauce,
and with 8 Habaneros blended in - you know these lollipops will be spicy.
You want to give yourself some time to let the sauce
cook on and tack up to the exterior before pulling them from the grill.
So, somewhere around 160 degrees internal is a good time to coat the lollipops.
At this point, they have plenty of smoked flavor - so I like to crank up the heat a little bit and
let them finish cooking around 325 degrees. Let the coated lollipops cook for about 10 minutes
to allow the sauce to set. Once you’ve reached an internal temp of 175 degrees - these guys
are ready to party! I love how the smoked color still shines through the gold sauce
a little bit - these came out looking delicious! All in all, they cooked about an hour and a half.
And like I said, this recipe makes enough mango habanero sauce to also serve some up alongside
for the truly bold. There you have it, the perfect way to get your spicy fix - with a sauce that you
know came from all quality ingredients - it doesn’t get much better than that!.
Alright, let’s give it a shot! Definitely got some heat to it, the mango chills it out at first,
but then that Habanero comes through for sure. This is for people who love spicy food.
Great appetizer, tailgate food… and a reason to try making your own sauce. So, I hope if you got
any peppers in the garden you give this a shot, or just use the habaneros like I did today -
cheers!
Thank
you for calling Barbecue Guys. Our office is closed in observance of Martin Luther King
Jr. Day, and we are not accepting voicemails at this time. We’ll re-open with our usual hours
on Tuesday, January 19th. In the meantime, visit B-B-Q Guys.com to view our top deals. Right now,
you can save up to $150 when you purchase BBQGuys-brand outdoor kitchen storage and
accessories. You can also get 0% APR financing for 12 months with approval
so you can start building your outdoor kitchen today. Thanks again for calling.”