Hot Chicken and Potatoes

Tonight was kind of a strange night. I came home, and picked up my boys from the babysitter. My wife was out of town. The boys had already eaten, so I was the only one hungry. I thought about cooking up one of my favorite chicken dishes on the stove, and then I thought how I could try it in the Dutch Oven.

So, I did. Here it is:

Hot Chicken and Potatoes

10” dutch oven

7-8 briquettes below
12-13 briquettes above

• 4-5 frozen chicken pieces, boneless (I used chicken tenderloin, but cut up breasts work just as well)
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 1 medium potato, sliced
• 1-2 stalks of sliced celery (would have been nice, if I’d had any)
• 2 Tbsp minced garlic
• lots of salt, black pepper, cumin powder
• about 1/3 cup water

• cayenne pepper wing sauce
• grated cheddar

I put the first set of ingredients in the dutch oven and set it on the heat. Interestingly enough, just as my coals were starting to get a little white, it started to sprinkle rain.

So, I covered the dutch oven with this big metal cylindrical hood my mother-in-law got me. It’s supposed to keep in heat, but every time I’ve used it, it also cuts back on the airflow, and ends up with the coals burning much slower and cooler. Sometimes, they even go out.

This time, I propped it up so there was plenty of airflow underneath, and it has holes on the top, so it was pretty well ventilated. After a while, the rain stopped, and it was never really that strong of a rain, anyway.

So, once the chicken and the potatoes were cooked (about 45 minutes), I pulled the pot off the coals, and put all of the lid coals on the ground, then replaced the dutch oven over those coals. I left the lid off, and let the rest of the liquid boil off. Sometimes, when I do this in the house, in a skillet, I let the chicken brown a bit, but in this case the potatoes were starting to disintegrate, so I didn’t.

Then, I shook in a lot of the wing sauce. I was really liberal with it, to the point that the chicken and the potatoes were coated in it, much like buffalo wings. I stirred it, and let it cook a bit, to get the wing sauce flavor more cooked in, and then I pulled it off and smothered it in shredded cheddar.

It could have easily served two, and with a side dish, three. But by then, I was starved and I ate it all with a glass or two of cold milk.