Foolproof Grilled Chicken (Page 363)

RECIPE #1238
Date: Saturday, November 6, 2010 -- 7pmLocation: East Lansing, MIKitchen: Our HouseFellow Chef: MattyDining Companion: Brad and DenizRecipe Rating: A-

My special gentleman and I made this recipe when his brother and sister-in-law came to visit last month. I started by brining the chicken overnight in a mixture of water, salt, and sugar. Then we made a vinaigrette of lime juice, fish sauce, minced garlic, cilantro, mint, red pepper flakes, salt, and vegetable oil. My special gentleman seared the chicken pieces on the grill, then moved them to a part of the grill where they got only indirect heat and continued to cook them. When the chicken pieces were cooked through he tossed them with the vinaigrette and served them with grilled limes. This grilled chicken was quite tasty. I am always a fan of brining and this recipe didn't disappoint. The meat came out moist and flavorful. The vinaigrette added nicely to the dish. The bold flavors in it stood up well against the char on the chicken from the grill. Everyone seemed to enjoy this dish quite a bit -- Deniz noted how much she liked it at least five times during the meal! It was definitely one of the better grilled chicken dishes I have had.

The recipe is here.

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My apologies for the blog silence. We had a bit of drama in our household this week. Over the weekend my special gentleman and I went down to Bloomington, Indiana. As we were only gone for two nights, we left the cats home alone and had our friends come and feed them on Saturday. We arrived home Sunday evening, excited to see our little kittens after a weekend without them! Little did we know the unpleasant surprise awaiting us. Apparently the kitties had gotten hungry between when they were fed on Saturday and when we got home on Sunday. So they went looking for something to eat. What did they find? Rat poison! We obviously had no idea it was there -- apparently it was left somewhere in the basement by the previous owners. We still don't know exactly where the cats found it. We had scoured the basement, removing hazards, before letting them down there. But the basement has crawlspaces, and vents, etc... and obviously we missed something. Somewhere they found a package of rat poison. They had chewed the package open and eaten the poison!

We went immediately to the veterinary hospital where the kitties were given activated charcoal. We were assured again and again that unlike dogs, cats don't actually eat rat poison. They may play around with it, but cats never eat it. The activated charcoal was a precaution, they said. An hour later the cats started pooping out pellets of poison. Apparently our cats aren't typical cats! They had indeed eaten it. Rat poison is scary stuff. It works by blocking production of Vitamin K, which causes the animal to internally bleed to death. There is a delay of 2-3 days before symptoms appear, so if you didn't know that your cat had eaten it, it would probably look fine for a few days and then just die. The treatment, after getting as much of the poison out of their system as possible, is Vitamin K therapy. After many terrifying hours at the veterinary hospital we were able to take the kittens back home. They were horribly sick all night on Sunday (from the charcoal and sorbitol that they got at the hospital) -- they cried and cried and we felt terrible for them. Each day since then they have gotten better though, and today they are acting like their usual selves. We need to give them Vitamin K twice a day for the next month, but it looks like they will be fine.

It was a horrible and scary few days. We love our little kitties so much and the idea of losing them was terrifying. And on top of the fear of course we both felt terrible that we had let them in the basement when there was rat poison down there. Now I feel hugely relieved and tremendously lucky that they are going to be OK. Poor little kitties.