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BBQ chicken - the busy mother's saviour
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Posted 12:54 PM on Thu-2-Sep-2010
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Takeaway was not a big player in my childhood - not only were there simply very few takeout joints in our neighbourhood, but my mother was of the belief that takeaway generally was a product of the devil. And she wasn't far wrong.
The takeaway of my childhood fell into two camps - restaurant takeaway, which basically meant Chinese food. There were two Chinese restaurants in our local shopping strip; the Wang Wah, which you could go to in your school uniform to enjoy some fluorescent sweet and sour pork of very dubious origins, or the Han Court, which was reserved for birthdays and other momentous celebrations. It was where the Beautiful People of our suburb congregated on a Saturday night.
The other sort of takeaway was brown deep-fried foods - fish and chips and the like - and this was the stuff that we were never allowed. Ever. Ever.
And then suddenly the takeaway landscape in our part of the world changed forever. Twice.
McDonalds moved into our neighbourhood. Of course, this was where my sister and I longed to eat on those rare takeout opportunities, but despite all our pining (and probably whining!) and noses pressed on car windows as we drove past, we never did pull into McDonalds. We didn't get to live that particular dream - and when Mum finally cracked years later, and let us get our long-for Happy Meal, she was so fierce and disapproving about the whole thing, that I got indigestion from eating my cheeseburger and fries too fast. McDonalds has continued to give me vague stomach pain to this day.
The irony is not lost on me that when I was old enough to have a part-time job, I started working at McDonalds and ate more of their food over the six years I worked there than I would care to admit now. My mother must have thought I'd sold my soul to that sneaky convenience food devil!
The other takeaway joint to move in to the local shopping strip was a chicken shop, and it was pretty fancy. Not only did it sell barbecued chickens but it had an array of fresh salads on offer too, as well as fresh chicken stock, honey soy chicken drumsticks, potato gratin and steamed vegetables. All fairly ordinary stuff now but back in the late 70s, it was a vision of the how the world could be.
Now that I am a mother myself, I understand what this bounty must have meant to my mother. Knowing that she could occasionally opt-out of the pressures of dinner production must have seemed like a wonder of modern living.
Barbecued chickens still have a charm all of their own - easy, relatively cheap and sort-of healthy, they tick most of the boxes for a mum trying to feed a family responsibly without actually having to be involved in the cooking. Our local chicken shop now sells free-range BBQ chickens so I don't even have to be troubled by ethical issues either - it's a win/win situation for me.
And not only can I serve up BBQ Chicken As Dinner, but I can break the bird down and make other meals with it too. Or serve it cold. Like some kind of magic trick for busy mums, the humble barbecued chicken can be turned into a breathtaking variety of meals. And all for $10 and a five minute trip up the road. Abracadabra!
Aside from simply tearing the chicken into pieces and serving as is, my favourite BBQ chicken dishes are:
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