Hey everybody, I'm Chef
Tom with All Things BBQ and today we're joined
again by our good friend Eric Gephart of Kamado Joe. Now we love these Kamado Joe grills which is why we carry 'em in our store. All of the accessories and grills that you see Eric cooking on
in these fantastic recipes can be found at atbbq.com. Check it out. Hey dream team, Eric
Gephart here of Kamado Joe comin' to you from
Wichita, Kansas at ATBBQ. We're gonna do a really fun recipe today, a chicken Ballantine. We're gonna take this bird, bone it out, we'll start from the breast
side and start carving down, completely bone it out and then you've got this canvas of skin and meat
that we're gonna pound down, layer with a little
prosciutto, little sage, little fontina cheese and
really roll it back up, get it back on the grill,
show you a cool method. Check it out. You wanna just cut on both
sides of that keel bone. So I'm just tracing that ribcage and we're just comin' straight down. The idea is to separate
the meat from the bone but whatcha can't do is
cut through that skin, so just be really careful
as we get close to the skin. We're gonna cut on the other
side of the keel bone here. And all birds that fly have keel bones. So ostriches, emus, and kiwis wouldn't have a keel bone. That's the keel bone right there. Just tracing that ribcage. So you can see we've got the breast meat, your tender there. We're
coming into the wing joints. Cut right through that joint. I'm gonna flip this around a little bit. Beautiful. Right through that joint. I'll go ahead and cut this part. (bone snapping) Get right underneath that neck
and just come right through and now, let gravity do the work. Don't cut through the skin. Take your time with it. Now that I'm down to the hip bones, I can see I'm cuttin' into that oyster. Kinda open that up a little
bit. Being very careful. Now I get in the other
hip, pop it outta socket. Again, let gravity help ya. So we've got the dark meat down
here, the thigh and the leg and then we've got our breast
meat and our tenders here. I'm gonna go ahead and take off the wing then I just separate that and
cut right through that joint. Same thing on this
side. Little separation. Working around the knuckle. Little scrape. And just pull it right through. And you can't mess this up. As long as you're not cuttin'
into the skin you're good. We're gonna pound all
this meat in just a second so if you're cutting into the meat and you think you're cutting
excessively, it's fine. Scrape, scrape, scrape. Trim down. And now that we're past that knuckle we'll scrape, scrape,
scrape. Cut the tendons. And just pull it right through. One thigh and leg bone to go. We use these for stock. And we're left with this beautiful canvas and in order not to have thick parts we're gonna pound this down a little bit. Where the backbone is
isn't any actual meat so as I cover this and I pound the meat I'm gonna wanna pound
it towards the center so that it flattens out and it spreads and it gets meat in this general area. Now, a lot of folks
will have a meat mallet and I think that's really cool. Sometimes I like to take out
a little aggression myself. Nice and easy. Again we're
pushing towards the center. (pounding chicken) Really breakin' it down, makin' sure that we have even surface area. Remember we're gonna
roll this whole thing up. This is also a way of
mechanically tenderizing it. Again, chicken Ballantine. So let's just take a second
and see what we've got. Beautiful surface area here. And we're gonna put again
our meats and some vegetables and some seasonings and herbs, roll it up, cinch it with a little
bit of aluminum foil and roast this on the Kamado Joe. Let's go ahead and get started with the next part of the process. First thing we wanna do
is season the inside. Little salt. A little pepper. Now since I've got a larger
V here where the legs were I'm gonna want that to be
on the inside of my roll. So I'll go ahead and start
layering my meat here at the top so that we have a very tight roll. We're gonna start with our pancetta layer. It doesn't have to be perfect. Maybe we go down with sage. A little red bell pepper. A little poblano and then a little fontina cheese. Pretty rustic, nothing crazy. Now we're gonna start the roll. Again we're gonna start from the bottom and just almost like we're rollin' sushi we're gonna grab all those great things and we're gonna pull it tight. Notice that little hole
that's right there? That's gonna get covered
up by the next layer. You're gonna bring it
right over to this plastic. Gonna make sure that the skin is all the way covering the ends. Then we're gonna take plastic
wrap just to keep the form and we're gonna roll it
and we're gonna roll it and then we're gonna grab the ends and then there's that old yo-yo
trick, Walk the Dog, right? We're just gonna hold the ends. Boom. And that's gonna give
it the form that we want. It's gonna bring the ends in tight and give us that nice cylindrical shape. Alright so, again, we've
got it all wrapped up. Okay? We've boned out the
chicken, we've got the meat layered in there, we've got the sage, we've got the vegetables,
we've got it nice and seasoned, and it's gonna sit for about 30 minutes. We're just gonna hold that shape and then we're gonna cut the
end off, put it in a foil, and tighten the ends, crank it down so it keeps that cylindrical
-excuse me- cylindrical shape and then we're gonna put
it on the grill, okay? We're gonna bank all the coals to one side and we're gonna put this on the other side and we're just gonna let it go. Now the oil is going to help
this get nice color on it, it's gonna kinda render
out, that skin's gonna begin to render inside and it's
gonna sear in that foil on the grill, we're gonna
flip it about halfway done. Once it gets to the desired temperature, which is 160 degrees, we'll
take it off, we'll let it rest, let it come up to 165 or above,
and then we're gonna take it and reverse sear it on the soapstone. Alright? Let's get 'em. Okay it's been 30 minutes.
Nice and cooled down. Just gonna cut that little end piece off. We're gonna put a little
oil on our aluminum foil. Bring our Ballantine over and just slide it right out. Same thing with the wrap. Nice and tight. Now this is very important:
instead of rolling it the same way like we did the plastic, we're gonna twist these
ends opposite directions. And look at how that
just shapes up perfectly. Looks like a big ol'
tube of compound butter, and this is gonna be our Ballantine. Again, there's salt and oil in here, so picture as this is heating up that there's even cooking happening and it's searing around all sides. After it's done cooking
we're gonna take it out. Remember at that point
the proteins are set, it's a solid tube but we're gonna want a little bit more caramelization on there so we're gonna heat the soapstone up and we're gonna roll it on the soapstone and then maybe we do a
couple sides on the soapstone at the same time and make
a full meal outta this. I think we've made some Johnnycakes, we've got some amazing spinach
that we're gonna sear up and we're gonna get this all
together on a beautiful plate. Let's get 'em. So we're all wrapped up in the foil, let's take a look at the grill and how we're gonna operate
this. 350 degrees Fahrenheit and we've got our grill grate at the highest setting. We're
just gonna set this here. I've banked all the charcoal to this side underneath the soapstone
which is heating up for that reverse sear that's gonna happen after this thing is fully cooked. You know obviously we're waiting. We wanna get a minimum
internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit for chicken but we wanna take it off at about 160. I'm thinkin' with the way this was rolled and all the internal ingredients, that's probably gonna take us about 45 minutes to an hour at 350 degrees. Alright? Let's get 'em. Alright so we've been about 45 minutes at 300, 325 degrees. Nice and firm, we're at
that 160 degree mark. Let's unwrap and see where we are. It's like Christmas come early. Very nice. So that's still piping hot, the carryover cooking is still occurring. We're just gonna let this hang out and rest for a little bit,
just like any piece of meat. Once it's cooked, you wanna let it rest, otherwise all that juice that
should be held internally is gonna spill out and it'll be less than 100 percent
of what it should be. While we're letting this
rest, we're gonna start making these little
almost cornmeal pancakes and you can imagine the Ballantine sliced into these beautiful roulade pinwheels and then you've got
your little Johnnycakes and then we're also gonna
do some sautéed spinach off the soapstone. Here we go. Just a little bit of oil. *Johnnycake sizzling* Just like making pancakes. And I'm pushing on the
top just to flatten it out a little bit for more even cooking. Beautiful. Little cornmeal pancakes. Just like a pancake, you're
looking for those little bubbles but closer towards the
center and that'll tell you boom, it's time to flip. And you can move 'em around. You want a little more space, I wanna speed it up, I can draw it. If you do that though it'll give this really cool elliptical look. I'll show you. It'll look
like there's two of 'em. Just a little bit more time on that. Whoa! Don't lose 'em. See that little curvature? I love that. Cornmeal pancake. Johnnycake,
hoecake, ashcake... and there's just enough honey in there, there's just enough, just
a hint of vanilla in there, little bit of salt. Just test, make sure it's not gonna stick, and go right down. *Ballantine sizzling* Make sure we've got real
estate for our spinach. *spinach sizzling* Notice I've got a glove on. You don't wanna touch that soapstone, that thing's pretty hot. Alright, little garlic... little meaning a lot. Little bit of salt, not too much. Sautéed spinach on the soapstone. You don't wanna cook spinach out too far, especially when you're thinking
about plate presentation. It'll start leaching out its liquid. And that's right where we want it. We're gonna build a
little mound right here. We're gonna put a little oil down. Look at that. That's that
caramelization that we want. The Maillard reaction. The
proteins have turned to sugar. We got a great sear there. That Ballantine is
looking absolutely proper. Look at that beautiful center. You can see the dark
meat and the light meat in the Ballantine. You can see the bell
pepper, the prosciutto. What we don't wanna do
is slice this too thin, it'll all fall apart. So I'm gonna go ahead and start slicing and start our presentation. Beautiful. Good. Little pine nuts and a little pomegranate. Nothing crazy. So team, there it is: a remarkable dish off a remarkable grill. What I really enjoy about this is the fun that you can have putting different flavor profiles
within the Ballantine. We got a nice crust that's gonna bring a rich, rich flavor and our brains... we're always searching for contrast so we have contrasting color here, contrasting texture. This is
gonna be a fun dish to eat. The black pepper honey
really sets it off as well. So thanks so much for watchin' and I look forward to doin'
some future videos. Cheers. Hey thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed the video
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you'd like to see us cook let us know in the comment
section down below. For more recipes, tips, and techniques head over to thesauce.atbbq.com All Things BBQ - Where
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