French Style Grill Roasted Chicken with Tarragon Butter



Gather your ingredients:

One 3-5 lb (preferably organic) chicken
1 bunch of fresh tarragon (dried won’t work here)
butter
dijon mustard
salt and black pepper
olive oil
brine for the chicken (salt, sugar, spices, water)

The first step is to mix the compound butter. Start with 1/4 lb (or
so) of softened butter (~1stick), 1/4 cup of chopped tarragon, 2TBSP
dijon mustard, salt and pepper (to taste) and mix that with a little
olive oil in a glass bowl with a fork to make a compound butter. Set
this aside at room temp.

Next make a brine for the chicken. I like to use a good amount of salt
and sugar at a 2:1 ratio along with some peppercorns, a half onion,
and half of a lemon. For this chicken, I used 1.5 qts water, 2 cups
salt and 1 cup of sugar. For more on brining check out this awesome
article. Brine your chicken for at least 2 hours, but not more than
6.

About an hour before you start the grill, and about 3 hours before you
plan to eat, pull the chicken from the brine and pat it dry with paper
towels. For best results (ultra crispy skin) let the chicken air-dry
in the refrigerator for 30-45 minutes on a rack (bottom shelf!).

Next, we need to add the herb butter. A good tip is to first use your
fingers to gently separate the skin from the breast starting at the
neck and then working your way down to the legs while keeping the skin
intact. Don’t worry if you rip it – we can work with that. Carefully
push the herb butter under the skin of the chicken starting at the top
of the bird (breasts at the neck) and working down into the legs. Pack
as much of the herb butter as you can under the skin, then massage the
skin to evenly distribute the butter mixture. If you have any butter
left over, spread that over the breasts and thighs.

If you ripped the skin take a toothpick and reconnect the skin without
piercing the meat of the chicken. It’ll look like Frankenchicken, but
it will keep the butter under the skin while its cooking.

Next, liberally salt the inner cavity and the entire outside of the
bird. Salt actually helps with crisping up the skin, so don’t be shy.
You can either truss the chicken with kitchen string like this, or you
can tuck the wings under then use a wooden skewer to pin the legs back
as I have done here.




Now go light that grill! I used charcoal (on my trusty Weber Silver)
and the indirect method as you can see below. By putting coals on the
outer edges of the grill and the chicken in the middle, an oven-like
convection is created. I did not use smoke (soaked wood chips) for
this preparation, because I wanted the herbs and the chicken flavor to
be the highlight.

Cover the grill with the lid and leave the vent holes half open on the
top and the bottom (gas grill: medium heat). You’re looking for a
grill cooking temperature of 300 -325 F. Check periodically to make
sure you’re not getting hot spots or flareups and temp the bird often
after the first 45 minutes to make sure you don’t over cook. Use a
temperature probe inserted into the deepest part of the breast (and
not touching the bone) to check doneness. This should take about 90
minutes – give or take. Pull the chicken from the heat when the breast
is 160F and the thigh is 170F. Tent with foil and allow to rest for a
full 20 minutes before carving.

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