Recipes

Donal Skehan recipe: Barbecued brick chicken with corn salsa

Donal Skehan’s brick chicken

Donal Skehan
Wed Jul 19 2017 - 01:00
Serves: 4
Course: Main Course
Cooking Time: 0 hr 40 mins
Ingredients
  • 1 x 1.2kg chicken, backbone removed
  • 1 tbsp rapeseed oil
  • 1 tbsp Cajun seasoning
  • Sea salt and ground black pepper
  • 8 spring onions, trimmed
  • 2 avocados, halved, stone removed
  • A good handful of coriander, torn to serve
  • 2 limes, sliced in half
  •  
  • For the corn salsa:
  • 1 chilli, finely chopped
  • 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 cobs of corn
  • A small handful of coriander, finely chopped
  • 1 red onion, finely chopped
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • Sea salt

It’s not often I get to write about house bricks in a recipe, so I will enjoy it while I can. Crispy chicken skin, tender and a juicy interior: it’s all there, but it does involve two concrete bricks. Beyond the chicken, the recipe I’ve included here for a spicy corn salsa is an ideal accompaniment to any grilled meats this summer.

While your barbecue is heating up wrap two bricks completely in tin foil – yes, really.

Slice the chicken down the breast bone and coat the two halves of the chicken with oil, Cajun seasoning, sea salt and ground black pepper.

Place the chicken skin side down over your hot barbecue grill. Put the bricks on top and cook for 20 minutes – be sure to press down heavily using the bricks every now and then.

Charred on all sides

Remove the bricks, turn the chicken and cook for a further 20 minutes until the chicken is cooked all the way through and a meat thermometer reads 75°C.

While the chicken is cooking, add the spring onions, limes and avocados, grilling until charred on all sides.

For the corn salsa, place the cobs in a pot of boiling salted water and cook for five minutes. Drain, cool and using a sharp knife the kernels from the cobs. Mix the corn kernels with the remaining ingredients and season to taste. Set aside.

Serve the chicken on a platter with the avocado, spring onions, coriander, corn salsa and lime halves.

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