- 10 – 12 chicken thighs
- Chicken injection
- Chicken meat rub
- Chicken glaze
- Butter
- Finishing dust
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- Digital thermometer
- Ice bath
- Sharp knife
- Cutting board
- Pruning shears
- Meat injector
- Gallon zipper bag
- Wire rack
- Aluminum pans
- Nitrile gloves
- Cotton gloves
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- Difficulty: Intermediate
- Yield: 10 – 12 servings
- Prep time: 1 – 3 hours
- Cook time: 2 hours
- Total Time: 3 – 5 hours
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Firstly, it’s important to get the right chicken for the job. What we want are 10 – 12 fresh chicken thighs; bone-in and skin-on. Next, look through the pack of chicken and make sure the thighs look like they’re about the same size. I usually just go to the local grocery store for chicken thighs because they have decent chicken and it’s convenient.
Trimming and shaping chicken thighs is the hardest and possibly most important step in preparing Competition Smoked Chicken Thighs. We’re going to break it down into 3 smaller steps to make it easier: remove and trim the skin, remove the knuckle, and trim to shape.
Use your hands to pull the skin off of the chicken thigh; taking extra care not to rip or tear the skin. Then, using a sharp knife remove the fat from the back side of the chicken skin. Next, set the chicken skin aside while we trim the chicken thigh itself.
Removing the knuckle is best done with either garden shears or a heavy duty knife; I prefer the shears though. Flip the thigh around and look for the fatter end of the bone in the chicken thigh. Using your shears trim the bone back to remove the larger end and leave a more consistent size bone.
Start on the backside of the chicken thigh by removing any unnecessary lumps of fat, cartilage, and veins. Next, flip the thigh over and trim all of the sides so the chicken thigh starts to take a uniform ‘pillow-like’ shape. Finally, grab the chicken skin from before and trim it so it fits neatly over the chicken thigh pillow.
Start by mixing up about 2 cups worth of your injection mix/marinade. Next, using your meat injector, inject the chicken in 2 – 3 spots in the thicker meat of each thigh. Finally, toss all the thighs into a gallon zipper bag with the mix to marinade them for an hour or more.
Use a spice shaker or your fingers to evenly spread a thin layer of your spice rub over the skinless chicken thighs. Next, replace the skin and tuck all of the edges to the underside creating a neat ‘pillow-like’ shape. Finally, place the chicken pillows neatly into an aluminum pan with about a half of a stick of butter melted in the bottom.
Start by pre-heating your smoker to about 275F. Next, place the pan of chicken thighs into the heat for about 30 minutes. Then, cover the pan with aluminum foil and continue cooking until the chicken thighs reach an internal temp of 155F. Meanwhile, mix and warm your glaze in preparation for the next steps.
After you’ve reached an internal temperature of 155F, throw on a pair of cotton gloves under your nitrile gloves to protect your hands from the heat. Dunk each chicken thigh into your glaze mix and place them on a wire rack. Sprinkle each thigh with a small amount of finishing dust and remove them all when they reach 165F internal. Keep the thighs warm by storing them in a Cambro or cooler until they’re ready for turn-in.
At about 10 – 15 minutes to turn-in, take out all of your chicken thighs and choose the best 6 thighs. These will be the thighs with most consistent color, shape, size, and overall appearance. Next, place them neatly into your prepared turn-in box taking care not to allow the top of the container to ruin your perfect glaze. And finally, walk them quickly over to the judges and cross your fingers.
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