Lemon Pepper Wings & BBQ Baked Beans

People around here were teasing me earlier in the week saying that I would wear out my BGE (if that were possible) and then this week I hadn’t posted anything. I gt a PM yesterday teasing me about this. We are having work done on our house which kept me busy, but I am happy to report I made lunch on the Egg 7 days in a row this past week and supper 5 out of 7 days. I actually made lunch every day this week for the 2 or 3 guys working on the house. They are avid quers themselves and had heard of the Egg, but never had food cooked on it before. They are sold on the advantages now too. There was nothing I did that I haven’t posted here, hence no pictures.

Today I made two new dishes: Lemon-Pepper Wings and Barbecue Baked Beans both from the BGE Cookbook. The beans were quite similar to the EggFest Chili & Brunswick stew I made recently. The wings were a bit different in that they were direct grilled at 500 degrees. I had some trouble with flareups, but I was able to deal with some of that issue by closing down the lower draft door. I still need to work on getting the coals spread out so I have even heat across the Egg. The grill was at 500 like it was supposed to be but the heat was somewhat uneven. For now I move the food around the grill so the cooking temps they are exposed to even out. The wings were tasty and I liked them a lot, but I am going to give them another try where I attempt to better control my temps.



The sauce for the Barbecue Baked Beans used the Basic Barbecue Sauce from the BGE Cookbook. It used: Apple cider vinegar, celery seed, salt, tomato sauce, cinnamon, light brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, minced onions, garlic powder, smoked paprika, ground cloves & black pepper.





The dry spices are mixed first....





...before they are added to the wet ingredients. The sauce was simmered to reduce it and thicken it up.





The rest of the ingredients for the beans are gathered. Besides the Basic BBQ Sauce it used, light brown sugar, cannellin beans, water, diced onions, maple syrup, yellow mustard, diced bacon, reserved liquid from the beans, salt & pepper. i





The Egg has been pre-heated to 400 degrees and the BGE Dutch oven was being heated for 10 minutes. While this was going on I worked on the Creamy Feta Dressing for the wings. It used mayonnaise, feta cheese, sour cream, Worcestershire sauce, red wine vinegar, salt & pepper.





The finished Creamy Feta Dressing gets refrigerated until it is time to eat.





Out at the Egg the bacon gets cooked first. When it is done the bacon comes out and the bacon fat is kept in the Dutch oven.





The diced onions gets sauteed in the bacon fat. It takes about 8 minutes.





The bacon and every other ingredient but the salt and pepper are added in.





After the ingredients are blended together the Dutch oven gets covered, the Egg gets closed and the beans cook for 30 minutes. I stirred them every 10 minutes.





This was the first time where I used the Dutch oven with it’s own cover on it.





While the beans were cooking I made the seasoning for the wings which used granulated garlic, kosher salt & black pepper.





The basting sauce used the zest or 6 lemons & EVOO





After being cooked for 30 minutes covered, the cover of the Dutch oven is removed and the beans are left on the Egg to cook down and thicken. At this point I added an Apple wood chunk that would serve to smoke the beans and the wings.





It is 15 minutes later and the beans have reduced and thickened.They will rest while the chicken wings are cooking.





The wings are tossed in the seasoning.





The seasoned wings are on the grill which is set up for direct grilling at 500 degrees.





The wings are ready to come off the Egg. They were brushed twice with the EVOO/Lemon Zest sauce.





The beans had wonderful flavor, but they were a bit of a surprised since they were quite sweet tasting. I liked them a lot after I got over the initial shock where the flavor was different than I expected. They are well worth making again.





The wings were very flavorful too. I need to work on my temperature control, but closing the lower draft door as suggested on this board definitely helped.





This was a very flavorful meal. Though the wings weren’t my best ever, there were none left when the dust settled. We made a pretty big dent in the beans too.







All in all another tasty meal and a good lerning session on the Egg.


I wish that there were some Egg specific cooking classes either real or virtual that I could take. There are definitely some things about the Egg are a little different. I've got using the Dutch oven part down pretty well. I am struggling a little with the direct grilling part. I am learning, but I wish I could speed up the process some more. But practice makes perfect and I am having a ball in the process!

Jim

I really like the fantastic char on dem dar wings, Jim. With char that superb, the wings have to be scrumptious, and the beans sound like a perfect compliment.

Looks delicious! I am going to give that Feta Dressing a try....sounds great! I have tried wings direct, indirect, and direct with a raised grid. My best results have been indirect with the platesetter at around a 375-400 deg f dome temp. So that's what I stick with usually for chicken wings.. Always worry-free as well. The skin always turns out nice and crispy too.

Thanks guys!

Dyal:
That has been my experience too. Once in a while I've done indirect wings where you crisp them up for five minutes at high heat at the very end and they come out good too. But as you say indirect with the platesetter in on my BGE turned out the best wings I've ever had, at least from a technical standpoint. I'm going to try some of my favorite wing recipes on the Egg. I'm sure they'll be improved by that cooking technique too.

Also I don't like having to wear barbecue gloves (because I'm direct grilling at 500 degrees) while I'm trying to flip wings. As it turned out it was a good thing they went up nearly to my elbow because I got some massive flareups when I applied the lemon/oil or when I turned the wings. When I closed down the lower damper this helped bring things under control more. But I think I'm going to stick to indirect, or indirect with a quick sear.

Jim