It seems there’s at least three ways to make a Thanksgiving holiday turkey. The traditional oven method we all grew up with and usually do. The “set the back yard on fire” method that is all the rage right now, namely the deep-fried turkey. And then there is a lesser-done middle of the road method that straddles nicely between those two which is turkey on the grill, or to be more accurate, the barbecued turkey.

Which one to do this year? Well the weather decided it for me. Here in Philadelphia in November the norm is pretty much 55°F on a nice day, and on the occasional day when we get a Canadian down-draft maybe 42°F for the high. This year, as the weather tends to do what it wants, we inexplicably had a two-day warm spell with the day before Thanksgiving reaching to 66°F And the day of the feast just glancing the 70 degree mark. (Mind you, the very next evening it went down to 30°F). So with this as a sign — well, ok, I don’t actually believe so much in signs so I should say, with this opportunity presented I decided to make the most of it. One finally grilling for the year. And what a way to go out with a bang but with my first-ever BBQ turkey breast!

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I’ve made brisket of beef before several times and each time it was made the same basic way, maybe a bit more “American” standard roast a few times, maybe a bit more “Italian” flavoring once or twice, but I was definitely in the mood for something more robust and different. Only one way to go then, BBQ-style, and when it comes to beef and BBQ, that means Texan. Actually, not, it seems.

I thought Texan, but I missed by a few states. Seems Texas does love it’s brisket big-time, but a little research turns out they’re not much into the sauce masking the meat taste. Seems when it comes to sauce as well as ingredients like cinnamon, brown sugar and a tomato base, and beef instead of pork, we’re talking more towards Missouri.

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I had a BBQ party this weekend with relatives and friends attending. The star was (no surprise) my BBQ pork spare ribs. But that wasn’t going to be enough to feed this hungry crowd — not even with appetizers and sides, so I needed a second “main” course or second meat here, and while still maintaining that grill theme wanted to vary it as much as I could. Fist way to go different was a different meat, natch, in this case good-ol’ chicken, still there was no way it was going to be sauced identically to the first one.

Afterall, just because it’s barbeque doesn’t mean it has to be the “same BBQ”, if you know what I mean. If you don’t, then what I mean is this: there’s the traditional wood-chip “real” smoked BBQ. As you might recall from the primer, real BBQ means smoked and cooked by indirect-heating. Now to vary things up there’s the other way — which here in America is not technically called BBQ but grilling and this is — with direct heat, over the coals, and using dry rub and BBQ sauce

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Here we go. The meat of meats, the summertime special, the reason — so many thousands of years from cavemen, we still like to do it their way — old school, neolithic old school — we’re talking about BBQ spare ribs, baby.

Maybe you’re totally into BBQ and smokin’, or perhaps you’re totally new. Either way, I’ve decided the best way to get the main elements across isn’t to repeat them in every barbecue recipe, but to refer to a single primer on the subject BBQ: Bringing Smoke to the Fire.

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If I had my druthers, the best way to do this recipe would be on my charcoal grill with the lid down — the perfect combination of flame and air moving all around the poultry. But that’s not the goal of this recipe. The challenge I set up for myself here was how to get a BBQ-like chicken with savory, crisp skin in the oven. (Cause not all of us are crazy enough to shovel through three feet of snow at 10 degrees F and use the outdoor grill in the winter. Or, for me the day I came up with this, it was was a 98 F day with 85% humidtiy. I’ll take the indoors with AC blasting and an oven on, then cooking by a roaring fire outside, thank you.)

This is one of those ideas that took two trys to nail down, call them version one and two. As I am known to say, you learn as much (if not more) by your mistakes. So I’m sharing it with you because like me, you’ll pick up some ideas when you run across these problems again. I certainly know I’ll be keeping these solutions in mind myself next time and at least avoid these same errors. (As always, you can feel free to skip down to the bottom and get the “unvarnished” recipe. Or take the ride with me and continue reading. Your chice.)

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