Rosa Whittaker keeps a small charcoal kettle on the balcony of her third-floor flat in the Annex. The grill is a 14-inch Weber Smokey Joe, the smallest one the company makes, and it was a gift from her brother in 2021.
On a Wednesday afternoon in early June, the temperature in Toronto has finally settled into the low twenties Celsius and stayed there. She decides, at 4:30, that dinner will be on the grill.
The chicken is six bone-in, skin-on thighs from the butcher on Bathurst. She bought them on her way home from the office and the package weighs exactly 1.4 kilograms.
The marinade is five ingredients. One cup of full-fat plain Greek yogurt — Liberte, the 10% — three cloves of garlic crushed to a paste with a pinch of salt, the zest and juice of one lemon, a heaped teaspoon of kosher salt, and a tablespoon of olive oil.
She does not add spices. She does not add herbs. She does not add honey or chili or smoked paprika. This is not asceticism. It is the result of having tried all of those things and concluded that none of them improved the chicken.
The yogurt is the marinade. The yogurt's lactic acid tenderizes the meat. The yogurt's fat carries the salt and garlic and lemon into the muscle. The yogurt's sugar caramelizes on the grill. Everything else is decoration.
She whisks the marinade in a glass mixing bowl, adds the chicken, and turns it with her hands until every thigh is coated. She covers the bowl and puts it in the fridge at 4:52.
The chicken needs at least two hours in the marinade. Four is better. Overnight is best. Tonight she will give it two and a half hours, which is what she has.
At 6:30 she lights the chimney starter on the balcony with a single sheet of newspaper and a quarter chimney of Kingsford. Twelve minutes later the coals are glowing orange and ashed over at the edges. She tips them into the grill on one side, banked.
The two-zone fire is the only grill setup she trusts for skin-on chicken thighs. Direct heat over the coals for the sear. Indirect heat on the cool side for the slow finish. The fat that drips from the skin will flare on the coals, but on the indirect side, those flares cannot reach the chicken.
She pulls the thighs from the marinade at 6:48 and wipes excess marinade off each one with the back of a spoon. Wet marinade on the grill will steam. The chicken needs contact with hot grates.
The thighs go on skin-side down on the direct heat side. She closes the lid. Four minutes. She does not lift the lid.
At four minutes she opens the lid, flips each thigh with tongs, and moves them all to the indirect side. The skin is the color of a varnished pew. She closes the lid again and lets them go for sixteen minutes.
She uses the time to make a salad. A romaine heart, chopped. A handful of cherry tomatoes from the farmer's market on Saturday. A few thin slices of red onion. The dressing is the rest of the lemon, olive oil, salt, and a half teaspoon of Dijon.
At twenty minutes total she checks the internal temperature of the largest thigh with an instant-read thermometer. Seventy-six degrees Celsius. Done.
The thighs come off the grill and rest on a wooden cutting board for five minutes, tented loosely with foil. The juices, which want to run, get a chance to be reabsorbed.
She eats with her husband and her son on the small bistro table on the balcony. The chicken skin is shatteringly crisp. The meat is tender enough to pull from the bone with a fork. The lemon is present without being aggressive.
The total cost of the dinner, by her quick calculation: $12.40 for the chicken, $3.50 for the yogurt, less than a dollar for everything else. Sixteen dollars for three people, including leftovers.
The two leftover thighs go into a Pyrex container in the fridge. Tomorrow they will become a sandwich on a Portuguese bun with mayo and the last of the lettuce.
Rosa has cooked this chicken, by her count, twenty-seven times since May 5th. She is not bored with it. The marinade is the answer to the question of what to do with chicken thighs on a weeknight.
By 8:20 the grill is cool, the kitchen is clean, and the balcony is quiet. She brings out a small espresso and sits with it while the streetlights come on over Howland Avenue. The grill, she thinks, has earned its place out there.
