After I heard how much everyone at Cookshack liked this recipe from Bobby Grooms of Bad Bob’s Barbecue Restaurant, Dyersburg, TN I decided I had to try it. After all, it won first place in our 2008 Creative Q'ing Contest in the category of Nouvelle Q. The original recipe follows, with my comments.

This is a labor intensive recipe but worth the extra time it takes. It's very rich and I would only serve it at a party, probably. The stuffed breasts, when cooled to room temp, can be sliced and make great party food. Put them on a platter with a green garnish and they'll look as good as they taste.

I used hickory pellets, rather than wood chunks, as I had them on hand and I wanted to try them in the AmeriQue. I put them on a couple of layers of aluminum foil in the wood box. They flavored the chicken beautifully. Just be sure to put some foil in the bottom of the wood box so that the small pellets do not fall through.

Ingredients & Method

• 10 chicken thighs, skin on
• Cookshack Spicy Chicken Rub
• Cookshack Mild Barbecue Sauce

I used skinless, boneless chicken breasts, instead of chicken thighs,  to reduce the fat. Here they are spread out in my kitchen with Spicy Chicken Rub applied. As you can see, I used only a moderate amount of the rub. Spicy Chicken Rub does have a little heat and I did not want to overpower the marinade and stuffing flavors.

Marinade

• 48 ounces orange-tangerine juice or orange-pineapple juice
• 2 ounces Parrot Bay Mango Rum
• 1 ounce grenadine
•  ½ ounce lime juice

Stuffing (optional)

• 1 lb. sausage
• 8 ounces Philadelphia cream cheese

De-bone the chicken. Apply Cookshack Spicy Chicken Rub to both sides of the thighs and work some up under the skin. Place in a Cookshack electric smoker for home use or a Fast Eddy's by Cookshack Model FEC100. Fold the edges under so that when they cook they have a nice rounded shape.

Remove casing from sausage and place in smoker in a foil pan.

Set smoker to 275ºF and cook for 1 hour. The photo shows cooked sausage. When I make this recipe again I will crumble the sausage instead of mashing it into the pan. It had to be chopped up and I would have much preferred crumbles.

While chicken and sausage are cooking, combine marinade ingredients. Seal container and shake. Pour 8 oz. of marinade into a glass of ice and reserve the rest. This is a very flavorful marinade that complements the smoked, stuffed chicken.

This is my AmeriQue, all loaded up with chicken and sausage. It smelled really good and seconds before this photo was taken we were shooing our big dog, Bob, away. He looked like he was prepared to dive for it. I have seen Bob trying to drink out of the drip pan, so I don't trust him for one second around anything that is in the smoker. Then there was the time he dragged the Thanksgiving turkey off the kithcen counter while we had our backs turned ... but that's another story.

After cooking for 1 hour, remove the chicken from the smoker and place it in an aluminum half pan or foil pan. (Leave the sausage in the smoker.) Pour the reserved marinade over the chicken. Cover the pan with foil and return it to the smoker for ½ hour at 275ºF. Remove chicken and sausage from the smoker.

Discard the marinade! Do not use it again! It has had raw chicken in it! Danger, Will Robinson, danger!

If you plan to stuff the thighs set the smoker temperature to 225F. If you do not plan to stuff the thighs, turn smoker off. 

Without Stuffing

If you are not stuffing the chicken, turn the smoker off. Remove the chicken from pan and apply a light coating of Cookshack Mild Barbecue Sauce. Let stand for 20 minutes and serve.

With Stuffing

Mix smoked sausage with cream cheese and sprinkle with Cookshack Spicy Chicken Rub. Remove thighs from marinade and place in clean pan* upside down. (Oops, as you can see in the photo I put them in the right side down.) Stuff with sausage mixture. Apply Cookshack Mild Barbecue Sauce and heat for 10 minutes in smoker at 225ºF.

*I have a couple of dedicated smoker pans. I don't have to get them sparkling clean on the outside every time I use them. When my husband cooks in the smoker he tends to sort of batter the pans around so I don't have to worry about my fancy roaster getting beat all to heck.

These rich, smoky chicken breasts are delicious. I paired them with a big spinach salad and some crusty whole grain rolls.Put one on a plate and eat it while you drink the 8 oz. of marinade that you poured over the ice! Offer a toast to good food!