Red meat prices are currently much higher than I’m used to paying. So when I saw chicken leg quarters offered at 49 cents per pound I decided to make shredded chicken in lieu of pulled-pork.
Right at half the leg quarter weight was fat and bone; starting raw dark meat cost me about $1 per pound out of pocket.
Non meat ingredients for the 10 pounds of dark meat were just over 1 TBSP of sodium phosphate, 9 tenths of a cup of water, 3 TBPS of leaf marjoram, 1.5 TBSP of fine ground black pepper, 6 cloves of crushed garlic, about 1.5 TBSP of fine diced ginger root and 3 TBSP of salt. Everything was mixed together well and refrigerated overnight.
The batch was hand stuffed into a large fibrous casing the next morning.
The drum smoker was fired off and the shroud was put in place for 5 hours of hot smoking.
The chub had reached 165F internal when checked after 5 hours of smoke-cooking.
The fibrous casing was rinsed off then striped from the chub.
Chicken pulled apart easily, tasted very good and was moderately juicy.
I’m not a big fan of chicken. But given the starting raw protein cost in this case, this simple process was well worth while.