Recipe for cooking chiken needed

[kittle]

My son, 12, is wanting to try something new for his patrol at the next campout. Any suggestions for cooking chicken would be appreciated. He has thought about cooking bbq chicken, but would like some other ideas too. It can be for any type of chicken, but leg quarters are on sell for 19 cents a pound this week. He could cut them up and have just legs or use both the leg and thighs.

 

Thanks,

[nldscout]

our guys like putting the chicken in a dutch oven, smothering it with BBQ sauce seasoned the way you like then cook for about 1 to 1 1/2 hrs. Boils some noodles and searve with left over sauce.

 

Quick, Easy, not a lot of clean-up. Hard to burn, really hard and its GOOD.

[Eagledad]

We like chicken in a dutch oven mixed with rice and chicken soup, broth or cream. But I had a friend who cooks chicken like turkey in a can. The turkey uses trash cans, but he uses gallon coffee cans for the chicken. Its easy, no mess and a lot of fun. Place foil on the ground, push a stick through the foil in the ground, set the chicken on the stick then the can over the chicken. Then put hot coals on top and around the can and stand there with a goofy smile watching. He told me it doesnt take to long either. Do a search on turkey in a can on Google and you will find a lot of information on how to do it. Just use a chicken and gallon coffee can instead. He will be the talk of the Troop for sure. Have him get a picture and maybe somehow you can get the picture up on the forum so we can all see.

 

Barry

 

[EagleInKY]

Our guys cook chicken in a DO too. They have done both BBQ and shake-n-bake. Either one comes out VERY juicy. It's delicious.

[SR540Beaver]

I don't have a chicken recipe, but my son adapted his mom's recipe for sausage and potatoes for this past weekend's camp and it was a hit with his patrol. The other patrols were coming over to check it out and they even got kudos from the adults for doing something different.

 

Use 1 to 1.5 potatoes per boy. Peel potatoes (if you have a kid who won't eat the peels) and cube them into chunks. Cut up half to a whole onion. Salt and pepper the potatoes and onions. Use half a package of smoked sausage per boy and slice into bite size pieces. Put the potatoes and onion in a dutch oven. Cover the potatoes and onion with the slices of sausage. Put coals on top and bottom. At home in the oven, it takes about 1.5 hours at 400 degrees to cook. So apply coals accordingly. The fat and oils cook out of the sausage to bathe the potatoes with some great flavor.

 

It is a simple one pot meal of meat and potatoes. The boys were so happy with it that they started talking about variations. They discussed putting in items like corn, green peppers and diced tomatoes and trying other sausages like italian or brats.

 

Note: No liquids go in the recipe. Just the meat and potatoes.

[SR540Beaver]

I suppose you could use turkey sausage.

[moxieman]

What about a Foil Pack? You think this is restricted to just burger, potatoes, onion and carrots?

 

The folks at Reynolds Wrap have created an online free recipe center ('cause they hope you'll use their foil for these).

 

Go on over to:

 

http://www.reynoldskitchens.com/

 

Under "Cooking Method", choose "Packet Cooking"

 

Dozens of Recipes just on chicken, never mind other meats and veggies.

 

[anarchist]

Kittle,

so many chickens so little time

D.O. Fried Chicken

D.O. Baked Chicken

D.O. BBQ Chicken

 

Whole chicken on a rope over a real fire with an aluminum foil cover.

 

smoked chicken (usually requires a drive in camp and dads $30.00 wet smoker.

 

Grilled chicken...need at least a bed of coals and an old grill or old fridge shelf...or a real grill.

 

Chicken pieces with rice or noodles

on and on and on...take your pick! ( and have lots of sanitizer and a bit of bleach or lysol for the work areas!)

[anarchist]

Kittle,

so many chickens so little time

D.O. Fried Chicken

D.O. Baked Chicken

D.O. BBQ Chicken

 

Whole chicken on a rope over a real fire with an aluminum foil cover.

 

smoked chicken (usually requires a drive in camp and dads $30.00 wet smoker.

 

Grilled chicken...need at least a bed of coals and an old grill or old fridge shelf...or a real grill.

 

Chicken pieces with rice or noodles

on and on and on...take your pick! ( and have lots of sanitizer and a bit of bleach or lysol for the work areas!)

[Eamonn]

I have never visited China, but have read that the Chinese consider the chicken thigh with much the same high esteem that we in the west have for the chicken breast.

Very often they will tunnel bone the thigh (following the bone with a sharp knife -remove it without cutting the entire thing open) This leaves a cavity that you can stuff.

Try swiss cheese and ham, bread stuffing or very finely chopped mushrooms and onions chopped till they are almost a paste, thicken with bread crumbs.

Thighs when tossed in seasoned flour and shallow fried can have a very nice crispy skin. Not good for the cholesterol, but very tasty.

Legs and thighs tossed in flour and browned in the DO with a couple of ounces of butter. Remove the chicken add a couple of garlic cloves, chopped onion or shallots -Cook till transparent. Add lots and lots of fresh mushrooms. Add a couple of ounces of flour (you just made a roux) add a quart of chicken or beef stock and a palm full (couple of tbs) of tarragon add the chicken and cook slowly for about a hour. Red wine is really good but cooking with wine can cause problems in Boy Scout land. Serve with new potatoes and crusty bread.

OR

Wash the chicken. Cover barely with water (You can add some onion, carrot, celery and leek (Just the green bit that you normally discard)

Cook the chicken by boiling it for about half an hour.

Remove the chicken. reduce the water (now stock by about half) Remove the stuff you added if poss strain but it's camp!!

Pull chicken from bone, remove skin - break into bite size chunks.

Melt a sick of butter or margarine add chopped onion, garlic, shallots and the white of the leek (if you don't have leek it's no big deal)

Measure some long grain rice add to the pan cook for a couple of mins -do not color.

Measure the stock so you have exactly twice the amount of stock to rice. Add stock a little at a time bringing to a boil each time.

Add chicken. (You can add smoked ham, sausage, shrimp, crab, oysters -But if you are adding Sea food wait for about ten minutes)

When all the stock has been added cover with a tight fitting lid. Cook over med heat for approx 20 mins. You can add thawed frozen peas (Canned will work but I don't like canned veggies!!) A great one pot meal.

I'm not very happy with Scouts deep frying stuff at camp -The oil is just too hot!!

Chicken and dumplings is a great camp meal.

I normally par boil chicken before pan frying it, just to make sure its cooked all the way through.

Steamed chicken thighs stuffed with spring onions is nice.

I like curry as long as it's not killer hot!!

Pulled chicken in Pita-Bread with toasted sesame seeds is a nice lunch.

You can use different oils to cook chicken in.

Chicken leggs breaded with crushed corn flakes or ritz crackers cooked in walnut oil is nice.

To save time and prevent some of the risks you might want to boil the chicken at home first. Freeze the stock in plastic bottles or boil it down to a concetrate and the freeze it.

Eamonn

[kittle]

Thank you everyone. i am going to let my son read this and see which he wants to try. I will say that it will probably have to be one of the simplist ones. His patrol has not done much in the way of cooking. The last 3 campouts they have had cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and hot dogs for supper. His menu looks like this:

 

Breakfast (Saturday):

Omelets in a bag or burritos if the boy wants it that way

 

Lunch:

Sandwiches and chips

some type of fruit or desert

if the boy doesn't like the lunch meat then they can have a

peanut butter sandwich

Supper:

A chicken dish (or taco salads if he chickens out on the chicken)

baked potatoes if he chooses chicken

some type of desert

 

Breakfast (Sunday):

cereal

peanut butter sandwiches for those that do not like the cereal

he has chosen

 

 

[resqman]

My sister does this for family camping. She puts chicken in a crock pot with taco seasoning. She lets it cook a couple of hours until it can be pulled easily. She puts the chicken a container. All of this is at home before the campout.

 

At the campout she puts out some flour tortillas and the container of pulled taco chicken. When the kids are hunger, they add a portion of chiken to the tortilla, shreded cheese, roll up and eat.

 

I like to add some onions when I am crock potting the chicken. You could also add green peppers.

 

Alternately you could put the chicken, cheese, onion, and pepper on half the tortilla. Fold over and lightly grill forming a quesidilla. Very tasty.

 

At our Den campout last weekend, we brought a bag of 20 frozen chicken wings. Grilled them until juices ran clear. Bathed them in BBQ sause and put back on grill long enough to heat sause but not burn the sugar. They were gone quickly.

[yellow_hammer]

How about a trash can turkey?

 

Take a look at this site http://www.herculesengines.com/Trash%20Can%20Turkey/Index.htm(This message has been edited by yellow_hammer)

[SR540Beaver]

Not to hijack the thread, but I want to put my two cents in about precooking at home like reaqman suggested. There are times when this might be appropriate, but they should be few and far between. Perhaps at Camporee where the boys are spending a large amount of time in the field and don't have a lot of time for food prep. As boy scouts, they need to learn how to cook in camp, not take things out of the cooler and throw them together. One of the greatest challenges is getting boys to discover the joy of cooking. They really don't want to spend "fun or play" time on food prep and cooking. Yet they love to whine about how unfair it is that the adults eat like kings. Some of the best time at camp for adults is prep, cooking, eating and KP. It is time well spent visiting and bonding. You can be as fancy or as simple as you want when camp cooking. Just about any recipe you can cook at home can be adapted for cooking in camp. You can slow cook in a dutch oven just like you would in a crock pot at home. You can bake a birthday cake in a dutch oven just like you would in the oven at home. Heck, if you don't want to use a dutch oven, line a cardboard box with aluminum foil. I once taught the boys how to use a stainless steel mixing bowl over a grate and coals to bake a pizza. They need to learn how to see cooking as part of the adventure on a campout (with a big pay off when finished) instead of as a chore.

 

My suggestion is to make at least one campout per year dediciated strictly to cooking and spend at least a month of meetings going over skill instruction. Make it a competition. Another option is to have the boys organize outside patrol meetings to concentrate on cooking. Another option is to have an adult in the troop offer the cooking merit badge on days other than the troop meeting.

 

We only allow the cold cereal, sandwiches and hot dogs type menus for a short time after becoming a new scout. All menus go thru one of the moms in the troop for approval the week before a campout to make sure it follows handbook guidelines.

[anarchist]

Kittle,

 

Is this a NSP or a 'blended' patrol? Where is his SPL????? They should be reviewing and approving newer scout's menus and encouraging the guides (?you have a guide?) to teach these guys...

 

Failing that an ASM should be offering gentle suggestions like...NO Cereal, no hamburgers, No Hot dogs....!

Sandwiches can be a good thing particularly to avoid burning day-light when there are program elements that need being done (translation: If the boys need to be learning or doing scout stuff on a schedule a long lunch {or breakfast for that matter} can blow the schedule)

 

The web is full of outdoor cooking ideas...so are scout manuals and trek guides....take you son to a large public library -many have copies of dutch oven cook books (saves you buying one for $20.00)or back packing cook books...BTW...simply grilling is an easy way to start with chicken...low heat, turn often, check meat temps....eat!

 

A favorite lunch for our river travelers is very simple to do..during breakfast prep/clean up the lunch crew mixes up tuna or chicken salad (need ice to keep mayo/tuna/chicken safe after mixing)and deposit in a large Zip lock on Ice...Then onions are diced, and lettuce is "sliced" very fine...again zip locked...Lunch time comes...cut a bunch of pocket pitas in half "load" pocket with salad, (onions as wanted), lettuce (diced tomato anyone?) add crackets or chips on the side and it is a great meal!...virtually nothing to clean up and a bit different...another "quickie" is sliced summer sausage and/or peperoni with sliced cheese (sized to "fit" crackers-ritz etc.) along with mustard, finely sliced onion, etc., on the side...again can be pre-preped and has little clean up.

 

Dinner is a cooking lesson just waiting to happen...older scouts and or ASMs should be watching and encouraging extra effort...get the patrol to buy a cheap cooking thermometer for meat and poultry...and keep it in their chuck box...(each boy chips in a buck or so) ...

Check out the web...Have your son put "camp cooking" or "outdoor cooking" or "Dutch oven cooking" into your web crawler and see what pops out...be prepared for hours of reading or printing (hint-get some cheap paper and set printer on black and white to save your color cartridge)

 

D.O. Apple dump cobbler is a great, easy and tasty treat.

If dad has a brinkman type water smoker ($30.00 at one of the "marts")... the boys can do great cooking on camps where they are able to spend lots of time in camp (mainly to do "fire watch"..the cooking is easy-put meat on and wait five/eight hours...but you don't light a charcoal 'fire' and abandon it...(Adults could watch while drinking coffee though)...Biscuits are nice in a D.O. for dinner also...and they can start with the "canned" biscuits from the store and 'grow' in to "make yer owns"

good luck

Anarchist