Chicken Barbeque “Inasal”

Chicken barbecue or chicken “inasal” is chicken parts seasoned and coated in a barbecue sauce, then grilled or smoked. It is a very simple and popular Ilonggo dish in Philippines and considered as one of the best street foods. Chicken is simply grilled while being basted with a mixture of oil, margarine and calamansi juice, its color perked up with achuete seeds.

Chicken Barbeque Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 kilo chicken (whole or cut in pieces)
• 1 cup soy sauce
• 1 head garlic, minced
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons of calamansi juice or lemon juice
• 1/2 cup of sprite, 7up or beer
• 2 cups of tanglad (lemon grass) for whole chicken
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 3 tablespoons of brown or white sugar
• Bamboo sticks or Skewers

Basting Sauce:

• 3 tablespoons annatto oil (atsuete oil)
• 1/2 cup margarine, softened
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon lemon or calamansi juice

Cooking Instructions:

1.  Marinate the chicken in soy sauce, calamansi juice (or lemon juice), minced garlic, chopped onions, soda or beer, sugar and pepper.  Marinate in the refrigerator for 1 to 3 hours.

2. To prepare basting sauce: Heat oil in a saucepan then add margarine and salt. Drop in achuete seeds and stir until color is extracted. Remove from heat and add calamansi juice. Use to baste chicken.

3.  To barbeque chicken that are cut into pieces, Thread the chicken pieces on barbeque skewers and grill on live charcoal until cooked. (If it is grilled whole, Stuff the chicken cavity with tanglad or lemon grass)

4.  Grill the chicken while basting generous amount of the margarine mixture (you can also put in oven until golden brown if desired)

5. To check if the meat is cooked, slice a small piece of meat off and if there are no juice running off the meat and there’s no reddish (blood) areas on the inside of the meat, the chicken is cooked.

6.  Enjoy this delicious chicken recipe with a hot sauce or sinamak!