Tonight’s dinner wasn’t really anything special but boy did it ever taste GREAT to me! After watching the Netflix series “Chef’s Table” on BBQ, featuring Tootsie from Snow’s BBQ in Texas, I’ve enjoyed cooking chicken leg quarters more than ever. They are VERY inexpensive (sadly because of our inhumane factory farming methods) and messier than boneless thighs or boneless chicken breasts to eat, but VERY flavorful and super-yummy. In this post I’ll recap the highlights of tonight’s cook on the RecTeq RT-700 Bull pellet smoker, including the two different DELICIOUS rubs I used.

One of the drawbacks of purchasing chicken quarters is that you need to remove the skin from the chicken. Tonight I bought 10 pounds of chicken quarters from a local Food Lion grocery store, which were $8 for 9 different quarters. I skinned all of them, cooked four, and put five in the deep freeze in a ziplock for another evening. Sarah few back to Oklahoma for a week, so Shelly and I are actually “empty nesters” for a few days! No need to cook more than this for dinner.

I used black Nitrile gloves to skin these quarters, and a sharp boning knife. I put some tin foil down on a cookie sheet and then my “usual” wire cooking rack, which I like to use when seasoning meat because it keeps some air flowing on all sides. I think it helps the rub adhere better to the meat. I sprayed some olive oil Pam on each side, and then seasoned them: Two with “Kickin’ Chicken Finger Lickin” rub, which is the ABSOLUTE BEST (Thank you Jill Rumbaugh of OKC!) and two with Kosmos Garlic Jalapeño BBQ seasoning.

I started our grill preheating before I left school, and set it to 400 degrees, so by the time I shopped at the grocery store and drove home (which took about an hour today, because I left school later than usual) the grill was perfectly heated and ready for cooking. I cut the ends off a bundle of asparagus, drizzled on two tablespoons of virgin olive oil, and sprinkled generously with Traeger Rub. I like smoking my veges like this on a ventilated wire rack.

I cooked the chicken exactly 45 minutes at 400 degrees, and I no longer have to check the temperature because I know at that time and temperature the meat will be perfect! And it was. I put the asparagus on the smoker 15 minutes into the chicken cook, so it cooked 30 minutes. Turned out crispy and yummy, not as “al dente” as we sometimes like, but still really good. (If I’m not cooking an entree at 400 degrees, I usually smoke my veges at 350.)

Those were all the details and highlights of the cook! I do like the Kosmos Garlic Jalapeño rub, especially on veges, but OH MAN was the chicken seasoned with the “Kickin’ Chicken Finger Lickin” rub ever AMAZING! I could eat chicken cooked with that rub every week of the year and never get tired of it. If you haven’t cooked with it yet, you definitely should. It’s a keeper!