Parboil chicken technique

I'm sure this topic has been beat to death, but I'm new to the site. I would like to know how it is done on the grill. I have heard a lot of talk about it, but never seen it done or told how to do it. I tried a couple of methods without much luck. So far my best attempt came by covering the bottom of a round deep dish pie pan in butter. I put the pan of chicken on my Smokie Mountain bottom grill. I then cooked it twenty minutes per side. Next, I sauced the chicken and grilled it ten minutes per side. The chicken looked perfect and was cooked perfect but tasted plain. I had plenty of smoke but it did not penetrate the meat.

It sounds like what you are doing is braising (to cook slowly in fat and little moisture) the chicken, not parboiling (to boil briefly as a preliminary or incomplete cooking procedure) it. Braising is done to tenderize, add flavor, and keep meat moist whereas parboiling is done to speed cooking times and tenderize. When you parboil food some of the flavor is lost in the boiling water...not so for braising.

It sounds like you have the process down. Add butter/margerine to a foil pan, add chicken, cook, remove chicken, grill for color until done. Alternatively, you can grill for color, and then add butter/margerine and chicken to a pan and cook until done. Some will even grill braise and then grill again.

boy oh boy i was pretty sure this post was coming from someone on the east coast..

thank god he's from MO... our "BBQing" gets a bad enough name as it is.


to the original poster: Parboiling should be illegal. Its like making chicken soup, without all the delicious noodles and veggies.

Maybe try this: Smoke the chicken from the get-go, pull it off just shy of 160 and finish on the grill. You should get your smoky flavor and a crispy flesh with this method. Rest it a bit before chowing down.

I also know a guy who oven-cooks his chicken and then grills it. It tastes pretty danged good, but I would prefer to smoke it rather than oven cook it.