Chicken observation (now with pics)

Apparently there's something to Jfm0830's comment about chicken being in the air as I grilled some last night as well.

I put fresh herbs, butter, salt, and pepper between the skin and the meat and noticed that while the meat did pick up some flavor it was more prevalent in the skin. Has anyone else ever noticed this? I cooked at about 375 so maybe that had something to do with it, but I can't recall a situation like this before.

No complaints, though...I love chicken skin!

Here's a quick recap of what I actually did. I started with a package of 5 chicken legs; somewhere out there is a 1-legged clucker who's not very happy.


Under the skin I put sage leaves, rosemary sprigs, and butter. Somehow the combination made the herbs look blue but I promise they really were green!


I cooked at a high heat (375-400) with smoke from some charred apple chunks left from a previous meal. The sage leaves are a lot more visible now.


Like I mentioned in the first post, the skin really seemed to pick up the herb flavor but the meat was really moist from the butter. I probably could've used less than I did but I sometimes have a problem with that.

Nice job... love grilled chicken. Really like the herb combination too.

Nice looking chicken! Did the meat itself gain any flavor by placing the herbs under the skin? Or was the flavor only skin deep? I had chicken again last night....about to post those pix myself as soon as I catch up on everyone else's stuff.

That looks delicious. Nice job!

Dyal_SC wrote:

Nice looking chicken! Did the meat itself gain any flavor by placing the herbs under the skin? Or was the flavor only skin deep? I had chicken again last night....about to post those pix myself as soon as I catch up on everyone else's stuff.

Yes, the herb flavor definitely made it into the meat but it was fairly subdued when compared to the skin. I have to figure it was somehow due to the fat in the skin plus the butter I added.