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Recipe

Cayenne Pineapple Barbecue Chicken

cayenne bbq pineapple chicken with tequila on the menu… come by

Pineapple and cayenne, which sounds like two things fighting and is actually one thing. Sweet carries heat further than anything else on a grill.

Use pineapple juice reduced down, not fresh chunks and not the syrup out of a tin. Reduced juice is thick, dark and sticky and it clings; fresh pineapple is mostly water and slides straight off into the fire. The reduction is where the colour in that picture comes from — almost black, not red.

There is an enzyme in raw pineapple that chews meat into mush given long enough, which is the other reason it is cooked down first. Heat kills it.

Feeds
6
Hands-on
25 minutes
On the grill
25 minutes
Heat
Cayenne, and you choose

Reduce the glaze while the grill comes up to heat, and the two are ready at the same moment.

Pineapple barbecue chicken charring on the bars
Shot the night it was made. Open the picture for the full photograph.

What you need

The chicken

  • 12 chicken thighs
  • 2 tbsp neutral oil
  • 1 tbsp kosher salt
  • 2 tsp coarse black pepper
  • 2 tsp granulated garlic

The pineapple glaze

  • 2 cups pineapple juice
  • 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup cider vinegar
  • 3 tbsp ketchup, for body and colour
  • 4 cloves garlic, grated
  • 1 1/2 tsp cayenne, or more
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1 tbsp butter, stirred in at the end

How it goes

  1. 1 — Reduce the pineapple juice by half first

    Juice alone in a wide pan, hard simmer, until two cups have become one and it has gone from pale yellow to amber. Ten minutes. This step is the recipe.

  2. 2 — Build the glaze on top of it

    Sugar, soy, vinegar, ketchup, garlic, cayenne and paprika into the reduced juice. Another ten minutes at a simmer until it coats a spoon heavily. Butter stirred in off the heat for shine.

  3. 3 — Taste the cayenne now, not later

    Once it is on the chicken it is settled. A teaspoon and a half is a warm background; three is the version I actually make.

    pro tip — The sweetness hides the heat until about four seconds after you swallow. Be careful judging it off one small taste.

  4. 4 — Chicken plain over indirect heat

    Oiled and seasoned, on the cool side of a two-zone fire, lid down, eight minutes a side. No glaze yet — it would be charcoal before the chicken was cooked.

  5. 5 — Three coats, each one over the fire

    Over the coals, brush, ninety seconds, flip, brush, ninety seconds. Do it three times. Each coat sets onto the one before and that layering is what makes it look lacquered instead of painted.

  6. 6 — Let the ridges blacken

    Where the glaze sits down on the bars it will go black. That is the best part of the whole thing and it is why the picture looks the way it does. Pull them at 175°F.

  7. 7 — Rest, then the last of the glaze

    Five minutes on a board, then spoon whatever is left in the pan over the top while they are still hot enough to take it.

Tequila on the menu too. Come by. LFG.

More of what comes out of this kitchen on the food wall.

Every picture on this page is one of mine. I paint for a living the rest of the time — that is the gallery, and the originals are for sale.