Marinades rubs and glazes for chicken

[SmokinTim]

Been fooling around with different soaks and glazes to achieve more depth of flavor, especially in my chicken.

I've been emulsifying apple juice or cider, oil, and salt and using this as a marinade. I have also considered using this as an injection and think I will inject a few of the whole chickens this weekend. Any other thoughts what I might put in there to try? I added some herbs like rosemary to some thighs I did a couple weeks ago and really liked that profile. I also plan to try a jerk style soon with the recipes that were posted, thanks!

For a rub I vary it greatly depending on my mood and try to use something different most times. Prepared rub has been great like MH, Yardbird, Rooster Booster, and I like a simple herb seasoning at times as well.

Glazing is new to me. I love a nice sweet vinegar style sauce to give it the initial sweet tang before the rub flavors with the skin, chicken and melt into a smoky meaty bite. Finishing with a nice bit of heat works well for me, but the wife and kids won't handle it. One of my favorites is Head Country original. The thinner sauce is perfect for a nice shiny coat and a change from my SBR days of thick coats and flavor hiding gloppy sweetness. I still use the SBR and cut it down with some vinegar, hot sauce, and brown sugar or honey. I tried a nectarine preserve mix in that and liked that too. I also have tried the orange marmalade sauce learned here and loved that. Cut the Sriracha amount in half and it was still too hot for my families tastes. The wife liked it but the kids wouldn't hit it. Maybe I should make them all hot and keep them for myself, but will probably end up doing half of them hot and make different sauces to suit everyones tastes. Any other thoughts or ideas to try while I ramble on?

[curious aardvark]

well I'd - personally - lose the oil.

Oil is used in commercial marinades to help it stick to the the meat and because it's cheap. But oil actually acts as a barrier to flavours being taken up by the meat.
It surrounds the cells with a water inpermeable layer and the water soluble flavourings and salts have ahard time getting through.

Tell you what is damn good - rub some ketchup over the chicken and then add heavy covering of Madhunky, seriously good combo.

As far as injections go - go check out fishawns latest chicken posts, he's used a few injections that look pretty good

[SmokinTim]

Interesting thought on the oil.

I aways thought of a marinade as a 3 part deal oils, acids, and seasonings. The idea is by doing this is to add flavor and give a moister product. The acids slowly break down the proteins while the seasonings impart the flavors to the meat. When I looked at marinades like chimichurri, and jerk recipes all call for oil? I like to save the seasoning mostly for the dry rub to better control how much I add to each piece but would not be opposed to adding it to the marinade if plausible.

[curious aardvark]

ah I just think of a marinade as a flavour infused liquid, the main job of which is to impart those flavours to the meat.

Now you can add acids and enzymes (papaya and pineapple particularly) to break down tougher meats. Or you can use alcohol to help hydrolyse the proteins.
OR you could just use herb infused water.

But oil isn't absorbed so it doesn't actually help flavour the meat itself. The flavour you get is just the flavoured oil.
So if you mix oil in with a marinade, yes the oil will carry the flavour ONTO the meat, but it won't let it necessarily penetrate INTO the meat.

The only thing I use oil based marinades for is fish, where I want the contrast between the flavoured outer layer and the actual flavour of the fish itself from the interior.

Oil and water don't mix - meat is 70% water.

[SmokinTim]

Hit on a new favorite last night! Had some leftover garlic butter from a garlic bread I did so I melted it and basted on some boneless skinless breasts. Mad Hunky on one side, Rooster booster on the other. Got a HOT fire going on the Weber and placed in direct heat. (Careful butter will ignite when placed on a hot grill) Damped down the grill to put out the fire, slowly reopened, and cooked about 4 minutes on each side to desired brownness. Then I moved them to indirect until they hit 165 and then plated and foiled them.

The butter smell on the grill was awesome, and the bird was very tender and juicy, I will do this again!