Entertaining

Rob Rainford’s Bacon-Wrapped Chicken “Chops”

Bacon plus chicken wings–what’s not to love? On Saturday March 31, Chef Rob Rainford will be appearing at the 2012 Spring Cottage Life Show. Here’s a recipe he’ll be cooking from his new book, Born to Grill.

Bacon-Wrapped Chicken “Chops”

By Rob Rainford

This chicken appetizer is a bit of work but well worth the effort and definitely a Super Bowl-worthy snack. The beauty of these “chops” is they have a built-in “handle” so they can be eaten with one hand. Wicked, I know!

Hands-On Time: 45 minutes | Start to Finish: 1 hr 45 min

Ingredients


3 lb chicken wingettes (about 30) (see Tips, below)(1.5 kg)
1/2 sweet red pepper, seeded and finely diced
2 shallots, finely diced
3 shallots, finely diced large green olives, pitted and finely chopped
15 slices bacon, halved

Instructions

  • With a sharp boning knife, make a small incision at one end of each wingette, in between the two bones. Be sure to cut into the same side of each chicken wing.
  • Going through the incision, remove the smaller of the two bones, leaving the larger bone (the “handle” attached to the wingette. Pull the meat back to resemble an inverted umbrella and expose the bone.
  • Toss together the red pepper, shallots and olives. Stuff a small amount of the mixture into the pocket formed by the pulled-back meat of each wingette.
  • Tightly wrap a piece of bacon around each stuffed wingette. Secure with a toothpick and refrigerate until ready to grill.
  • Fire up your charcoal grill and prep the grill for cooking over indirect heat. You need a temperature of around 350°F (180°C) to grill the wingettes. For gas grills, preheat the grill to 350°F (180°C) then turn off one burner to achieve indirect heat.
  • Brown the wingettes evenly over direct heat, then move them to the cooler side of the grill. Cook for 30 to 45 minutes, turning often, or until the juices run clear, the bacon is crisp and the chicken reaches an internal temperature of 170°F (76°C).
  •  

    Tips: There are three sections to a chicken wing: the drumette (that resembles a tiny chicken drumstick), the wingette (featured in this recipe) and the tip, which is the piece with hardly any meat on it but which works well in chicken stock.

    A little trick I use to help the wingettes to keep their shape is to wrap them tightly in plastic wrap after you’ve stuffed them and wrapped them in bacon, then refrigerate them until they’re chilled. Remember, a food’s appearance is just as important as how it tastes.

    Yield: About 30 chicken “chops”.

    Excerpted from Rob Rainford’s Born to Grill: Over 100 Recipes From My Backyard to Yours. Copyright © 2012 Rob Rainford. Published by Appetite by Random House, a division of Random House of Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.