Grilled Greek Chicken - Garlic, Lemon & Herb Grilled Chicken Recipe

[Music] hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with grilled greek chicken that's right I like my Greek chicken like I like my Greek weddings big and fat and of course I'm referring to the flavor as the chicken pieces were using it of the same size as usual but when it comes to how incredibly tasty this is big and fat is a perfect way to describe the flavors and the key to this whole operation is the marinade which is going to be the first step and basically the strategy here to achieve these big fat flavors is to use a ton of everything so instead of adding a couple cloves of crushed garlic to this bowl we'll add like six or seven cloves and instead of one small spoon of dry oregano we'll add two giant spoons okay so a ton of garlic and oregano are the co-stars in this marinade but we're also gonna put in a very generous spoon of hot pepper flakes as well as a ridiculously large amount of freshly ground black pepper and that's gonna do it for our dry ingredients but of course we also need some wet ones so we'll go ahead and add a whole bunch of freshly squeezed lemon juice do not under any circumstances use concentrate I'm gonna need you to squeeze please I also think we should add a little splash a white distilled vinegar so as to increase the acidity without changing the flavor and then we'll go ahead and finish up with some extra virgin olive oil and we will whisk all that together and as soon as that's mixed out we are now the proud owners of one of the world's simplest but most intensely flavored marinades ever invented so we'll list that up and set it aside and then once that's that we can move on to prep our chicken and because I'm going to be using these leg thigh quarters we want to make a few slashes in these before they hit the marinade using the old two in the thigh one in the leg method which means we'll cut the fat twice through the skin down to the bone about an inch apart as well as do the same thing once through the thickest part of the leg and what these three slashes are gonna do is not only let this cook a little quicker more evenly but it's also going to allow our marinade to get in there a little better okay so we'll go ahead and prep those leg sections as shown at which point we're gonna solve both sides very generously and the reason I'm showing you this technique versus just throwing the salt into the marinade is because that kind of throws people off sometimes because they're never sure exactly how much to put as well as marination times can vary so one technique I like to help people visualize how much to put is to very generously apply kosher salt both sides as we would if we were season these to do without a marinade and that way theoretically when we combine this with the marinade we have enough salt even though I usually sprinkle a little on the skin before i grill it this is gonna get us very very close so we'll go ahead and salt that very enthusiastically on both sides before combining it with our marinade speaking of which funny story I would normally mix this all up in a big bowl and just let it marinate in there in the fridge tossing it once in a while but every time I do that I get email saying why don't you use a plastic bag it's so much easier and you don't have to toss the chicken around so I was like you know what I'm gonna throw those people bone and use a bag this time except that the kitchen gods have a sense of humor so they made sure my bag sprung a leak which forced me to get upset and dump it into a bowl like I planned on originally so basically the moral of the story is never try anything anyone tells you remember that kids so anyway ended up mixing that very thoroughly in this bowl and one thing I like to do once I'm confident those are all coated is turn them so the skin sides up and the flesh side is down in that marinade before I refrigerate them so the more that meat is sort of sitting in the marinade and I'm not sure if that makes a difference but it might so I do it and then what we'll do once our chicken is situated and wrapped is let that marinate in the fridge for at least four hours or up to overnight which personally for me I find a little too long for me the sweet spot is about six to eight hours which is how far I let this go and as you can see I like to lay it down on a paper towel and sheet pan just to sort of let it drain for a few minutes and then even though as we discussed i salted this earlier I do like to add a little sprinkling to the skin side before heading to the grill oh and I just remembered don't throw away any excess marinade okay towards the end of grilling we can always use that to base the chicken if we want so we'll hang on to that and assuming our coals are ready we'll head outside and throw this on a charcoal grill and we'll go ahead and set those down in some kind of visually pleasing arrangement and as usual with these grilling videos I can't really tell you how to do it so much as I can tell you what I did all right there's just so many variables with the different types of grills and different amounts of heat but I can't give you the following advice and that's not to use too hot of a fire all right it really doesn't do as much good if the outside is beautifully browned and crusty and yet the inside is still raw because the surface cook too fast okay don't let all that smoke fool you I don't really like to use a lot of intense heat here so instead of grilling chicken it's almost more like we're roasting the chicken on the grill so my general strategy is to go about six or seven minutes with the skin side down and then I'll flip them over and give the other side about the same time and then from that point on I like to play with my food I know that's frowned upon and you're only supposed to turn stuff once but with all due respect that's crazy so if I want to flip it back over to the skin side again to get a little extra carmelization what are they gonna do about it I mean we are after all the Charles Dickens of our Greek grilled chickens and by the way yes if you say please you can have more later but anyway like I said once I have both sides browned I kind of move the stuff around as I see fit until I've determined it's cooked enough and of course we can use internal temperature to check for doneness but usually I just go by look and feel so right here they were getting pretty close but I decide to give him another couple minutes plus I remembered I saved that extra marinade so I went ahead and brush that over and I let these cook for another three or four minutes which reminds me you have to do that if you're using marinade that had raw chicken in it okay we would never want to put that on and then serve the chicken immediately so like I said I'll let mine cook for another few minutes until that brushed on marinade as well as the chicken itself we're done at which point I decided to pull these off and I'm not gonna lie these probably could have used another five minutes or so but the Sun was going down and the light was perfect so I decided to stop while I was ahead and that my friends if you don't mind me saying myself is one gorgeous plate of grilled Greek chicken in fact it would be impossible for that to look any better unless we did this served it on some wonderfully colorful diced cucumber tomato and onion and not only is that gonna be nice to look at but it's also going to provide a textural and temperature contrast between the hot smoky chicken and the cool crisp vegetables how do you say vegetables and then from there I went full food stylist with not only a placemat and a sprig of oregano but also a clear bowl of lemon wedges and that's it our grilled Greek chicken is ready to serve so I went ahead and plate it up and decide to serve this with a little bit of spicy yogurt which as you can see I dusted with a little bit of cayenne at which point it was time to grab a fork a knife and try piece or attempt to as you longtime viewers know I can't eat on camera and the knife hit the bone on this first cut but I quickly pan and awkwardly hacked off a little piece which I tasted without the yogurt to get the full effect and it was absolutely magnificent as I mentioned earlier this is just one of the tastiest most intensely flavored grilled chicken recipes in existence and while optional I really do enjoy that creamy tangy Ness of the yogurt sauce which I'm pretty sure I'm gonna tell you how to make on the blog but anyway that's it how I do when I'm calling grilled Greek chicken which is kind of a generic name for something that tastes so special but anyway call me a grilled Greek chicken works for me since everybody knows how delicious Greek food is and they'll assume the same is going to be the case with this which it will be so I really do hope you give this a try soon head over to food wishes comm for all the ingredient amounts and more info as usual and as always enjoy [Music]

Channel: Food Wishes

Views: 1,621,257

Rating: 4.8846135 out of 5

Keywords: Grilled, Chicken, Greek, Garlic, Herb, Recipe, chef, john, foodwishes, poultry, dinner, entree, bbq, grill, food, cooking, recipes

Id: LooR5pB-7YM

Length: 7min 39sec (459 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 17 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Vinto47]

I love Chef John's color commentary during his videos.