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Mashups are all the rage right now, from web applications to music, mashing two great things together is a beautiful thing when done right. For this week’s post, I took the opportunity to mashup two of my favorite foods: a Cuban Sandwich and a smoked chicken bomb. The idea was a simple one, take the contents of a Cuban sandwich and stuff them inside the chicken bomb, replacing the cream cheese and jalapeno filling. The result could not have turned out better with a new chicken bomb being born! Now sit back, sip on an ice cold Cristal cerveza, and enjoy this post for Smoked Cubano Chicken Bombs.
Smoked Cubano Chicken Bombs
The ingredients couldn’t be any easier…bone-in chicken thighs, dijon mustard, provolone cheese, bacon, ham, and pickles.
The trickiest party was de-boning the chicken thighs while leaving the skin intact, but it’s easy once you get the hang of it. Find the bone, slice on either side, using your knife scrape the flesh from the bone, then gently slice behind the bone removing it from the thigh. To see how to debone a chicken thigh click this link from Serious Eats.
Slathering the dijon mustard is next. Make sure to do this on the flesh side of the chicken thighs.
Layer equal amounts of the cheese, ham, and pickle slices on top of the dijon mustard.
Fold the chicken up so the contents are stuffed neatly inside. Wrap one piece of bacon lengthwise and another around the middle to seal the chicken thigh. To ensure the contents stay in place during the cook, use three toothpicks to keep the chicken together. I did this by placing the toothpicks at the bottom of the chicken (shown below).
You can not beat Caribeque’s Honey Heat rub when smoking chicken bombs. The balance of sweet and heat married with the beautiful caramelization of this rub turns out great chicken bombs.
Set the Big Green Egg up for indirect cooking using a ConvEGGerator
. Preheat the BGE to 300° in order to get the bacon cripsy. Once the BGE is ready place in a chunk of wood (I used Cherry for this cook).
Now place the chicken bombs skin side up in the BGE and let them smoke for an hour to an hour and a half.
When the chicken bombs are ready you will see this beautiful crust formed and the chicken should measure 165° using a Thermapen
.
Let the Smoked Cubano Chicken Bombs rest for 5 minutes before slicing.
Slice these beautiful Cubano Chicken Bombs and serve hot. So delicious you will wish you had made more!
Smoked Cubano Chicken Bombs
Ingredients
- 4 bone in chicken thighs
- 4 slices of ham, cut into quarters
- 4 slices of provolone, cut into quarters
- 2 Tbls Dijon mustard
- 12 pickle chips
- 8 slices of bacon
Instructions
- Debone the chicken thighs leaving the skin on
- Spread the chicken thighs out skin side down
- Spread equal portions of the mustard on the meat side of the chicken thighs
- Place an equal amount of provolone slices on each chicken thigh
- Place an equal amount of ham slices on each chicken thigh
- Place 3 pickles on top of the ham down the middle of the chicken thigh
- Roll the chicken thigh up sealing the ingredients
- Wrap a piece of bacon around the middle of the chicken thigh and another around the thigh lengthwise sealing the contents with bacon
- Put toothpicks through the bottom of the chicken thighs to help keep contents inside while cooking
- Set your smoker to 300° using indirect heat
- Add mild flavor wood for the smoke
- When the smoker is ready put the chicken in and let smoke for an hour (or more) until they measure 165°
- Pull and let rest before slicing and serving
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
