Dirty Bird w/ grilled tater tots & salad

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Smokey Lew

Head Chef
Joined
Jan 10, 2010
Messages
1,502
Location
Southern California - Riverside
Tested my new grill basket with some chicken legs and thighs tonight. I used Kosmo's Dirty Bird to season the chicken. The salad was grilled for about a minute on direct heat with some extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. It was dressed with some feta cheese and balsamic vinaigrette just before serving. And of course, there were tater tots!

Chicken is on the indirect side of the grill. If you look close, you can see the homemade grill basket to the left of the chicken and drip pans under the bird pieces.


Here's the grill with everything on it. Salad only took about a minute before everything was pulled off.


The final results plated. It was all pretty good.


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Kick ass grill Lew! Great lookin' dinner to boot! That salad looks like something they serve in a high end place (meaning they bring it out whole and you got to cut it up yourself :roll: :LOL: ) and charge a lot of $$. I'd tear that dinner up. Thanks for sharing.
 
I asked for some shots with the new grill basket and I got em. Great Job Lew. How did you cook em tater tots? Just let em roast or is there oil in that there skillette? I'm doing the tater tots for sure.
 
Vermin999 said:
Great looking chicken and sides. How you like your new grill so far?
Hey Vermin, so far I like the grill a lot but I've only done a couple of test cooks so far. The biggest adjustment I'm having so far is calculating the amount of fuel for a particular cook.

The thing that's so different about this type of grill from the Performer, other than size, is that it eats whatever amount of fuel you put in it.

I got psyched by Tri-tips comment to one of my posts on the basket when he said "you can put a whole bag of Stubb's briquets in the basket and cook for a couple of hours". I took him up on the comment and dumped a whole bag into the basket for last nights cook of some chicken legs and thighs.

The problem was that he was right. The grill kept on chugging along with the Stubb's long after the chicken was cooked and the dishes were washed. I even tried stuffing a large tinfoil plug into the chimney to damp the air flow and smother the coals. It didn't work. It ate it all.

The Performer is very good at snuffing out the coals once you close all the vents. This beast is an animal of a different color, but I'm really having fun with it. Probably told you a lot more here than you even wanted to know. Sorry :oops:
 
Tri Tip said:
I asked for some shots with the new grill basket and I got em. Great Job Lew. How did you cook em tater tots? Just let em roast or is there oil in that there skillette? I'm doing the tater tots for sure.
Hi Tri-tip, how was the baseball game? The tater tots were a bit of a disappointment. I put them in the cast iron pan with just a bit of oil coated on the bottom to keep them from burning. I think I put them into the grill to bake a bit late. The chicken was ready a lot sooner than I anticipated and I pulled the tots before they got crisp. The kids liked them though.
 
Smokey Lew said:
[quote="Tri Tip":1efhl9y1]I asked for some shots with the new grill basket and I got em. Great Job Lew. How did you cook em tater tots? Just let em roast or is there oil in that there skillette? I'm doing the tater tots for sure.
Hi Tri-tip, how was the baseball game? The tater tots were a bit of a disappointment. I put them in the cast iron pan with just a bit of oil coated on the bottom to keep them from burning. I think I put them into the grill to bake a bit late. The chicken was ready a lot sooner than I anticipated and I pulled the tots before they got crisp. The kids liked them though.[/quote:1efhl9y1]

Angels got smoked. Left in the 7th inning. A few fly balls came my way but all I caught was a buzz!
I too miss the ability to extinguish the coal. But I have conquered that. I mainly cook with Mesquite Lump. Long and large cooks I use Stubbs. (also a lot of the family don't like Mesquite)
Stuff a small towel in the exhaust and come back after dinner. The coals will not go out but they will be very low. Get on your welding gloves and lift out your basket. Pour it in one of these. I built this contraption for cheep and it puts out the coal in minutes and you can reuse it the next day. The coal sits on top and the ashes fall to the bottom.
I'm sure your wife will enjoy you building some more BBQ junk :LOL:
Be patient. It took me quite some time to get my fuel amounts correct. I've been cooken on a one touch for 10 years. Also this thing seems to cook better the more gunk builds up on the inside.
 

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Tri Tip said:
[quote="Smokey Lew":3j48kosh][quote="Tri Tip":3j48kosh]I asked for some shots with the new grill basket and I got em. Great Job Lew. How did you cook em tater tots? Just let em roast or is there oil in that there skillette? I'm doing the tater tots for sure.
Hi Tri-tip, how was the baseball game? The tater tots were a bit of a disappointment. I put them in the cast iron pan with just a bit of oil coated on the bottom to keep them from burning. I think I put them into the grill to bake a bit late. The chicken was ready a lot sooner than I anticipated and I pulled the tots before they got crisp. The kids liked them though.[/quote:3j48kosh]

Angels got smoked. Left in the 7th inning. A few fly balls came my way but all I caught was a buzz!
I too miss the ability to extinguish the coal. But I have conquered that. I mainly cook with Mesquite Lump. Long and large cooks I use Stubbs. (also a lot of the family don't like Mesquite)
Stuff a small towel in the exhaust and come back after dinner. The coals will not go out but they will be very low. Get on your welding gloves and lift out your basket. Pour it in one of these. I built this contraption for cheep and it puts out the coal in minutes and you can reuse it the next day. The coal sits on top and the ashes fall to the bottom.
I'm sure your wife will enjoy you building some more BBQ junk :LOL:
Be patient. It took me quite some time to get my fuel amounts correct. I've been cooken on a one touch for 10 years. Also this thing seems to cook better the more gunk builds up on the inside.[/quote:3j48kosh]
Hey Mike, that's cool. Is that coal snuffer a small metal trash can with a lid?
 
Smokey Lew said:
[quote="Tri Tip":796buwr2][quote="Smokey Lew":796buwr2][quote="Tri Tip":796buwr2]I asked for some shots with the new grill basket and I got em. Great Job Lew. How did you cook em tater tots? Just let em roast or is there oil in that there skillette? I'm doing the tater tots for sure.
Hi Tri-tip, how was the baseball game? The tater tots were a bit of a disappointment. I put them in the cast iron pan with just a bit of oil coated on the bottom to keep them from burning. I think I put them into the grill to bake a bit late. The chicken was ready a lot sooner than I anticipated and I pulled the tots before they got crisp. The kids liked them though.[/quote:796buwr2]

Angels got smoked. Left in the 7th inning. A few fly balls came my way but all I caught was a buzz!
I too miss the ability to extinguish the coal. But I have conquered that. I mainly cook with Mesquite Lump. Long and large cooks I use Stubbs. (also a lot of the family don't like Mesquite)
Stuff a small towel in the exhaust and come back after dinner. The coals will not go out but they will be very low. Get on your welding gloves and lift out your basket. Pour it in one of these. I built this contraption for cheep and it puts out the coal in minutes and you can reuse it the next day. The coal sits on top and the ashes fall to the bottom.
I'm sure your wife will enjoy you building some more BBQ junk :LOL:
Be patient. It took me quite some time to get my fuel amounts correct. I've been cooken on a one touch for 10 years. Also this thing seems to cook better the more gunk builds up on the inside.[/quote:796buwr2]
Hey Mike, that's cool. Is that coal snuffer a small metal trash can with a lid?[/quote:796buwr2]

Yep it's the regular size trash can about 3 feet tall with lid. Garden Dept Home Depot. Also I got the expanded metal there too.
 
That's a great lookin' spread! I especially like the grilled salad. ;)

John
 

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