Take your grilling FLAVOR to the next level!

Chicken is always a favorite meal of mine. Be it fried, adobo, curry, anything chicken... but for me, the ultimate chicken meal would be the chicken barbecue. We only have our home made chicken barbecue for the whole family on special occasions like Christmas and New Year, and it we get have it in our meal rarely. It's probably because it is so hard to prepare and cook. Back then we didn't have an electric turbo grill. We only had an old charcoal grill to cook our barbecue.

Me and my dad enjoying the native chicken barbecue...

Still, as a child, I had the opportunity to see how the chicken barbecue was done the old fashioned way. It was through my father that I learned how chicken barbecue should be done. I was hesitant to learn at first, but after seeing the entire process, I got to know how much fun making chicken barbecue can be!

To make our chicken barbecue flavorful, we have to prepare the following.

- Whole chicken
- bowl (for the marinade)
- Soy Sauce / Table Salt
- Sugar
- Whole or ground pepper
- Onions (minced)
- Calamansi / Lemon Juice
- The charcoal grill

First, we have to prepare the marinade. To make some, mix soy sauce, sugar, pepper, minced onions and calamansi together in one bowl. We can change or add more ingredients into our marinade, like table salt instead of soy sauce, or lemon juice instead of calamansi. We can even use our local lemon/lime flavored softdrink as marinade.

Then, we marinade our chicken. Dip the whole chicken from 30 minutes or more to allow the marinade to seep into the meat.

After marinading, we prepare our charcoal grill. Place a generous amount of charcoal into the grill and let it burn for a couple of minutes. When the grill is hot enough and enough time was given for marination, it is time to cook our chicken barbecue.

Place the whole chicken on a long barbecue stick which will be used to hold the chicken for grilling. When grilling the chicken barbecue, we had to manually turn the chicken around so that the chicken will be properly cooked on all sides. We also had to fan the flames to increase the heat. When the chicken turns golden brown, it is ready to serve.

Preparing the chicken barbecue may be tedious at times because we had to manually do all the stuff to get the cooking done, like fanning and turning the chicken around. But in the end, the small and taste of the chicken barbecue was a reward for all the hardwork.

If there was any dish I want to prepare on a lazy Sunday afternoon for my family, this would be it. It's definitely chicken barbecue! This meal is also great for sharing with other family members and guests as well.

For me, making this recipe today can bring back the fun memories with dad . And when my baby boy gets a little older to learn how to cook, I want to share this experience I had with my dad to him.

Luckily today there are already ready-made seasoning mixes available at our local grocery stores. Mc Cormick brings passion to flavor by giving to us new flavors for our barbecue dishes to choose from.

Mc Cormick's Grill Mates is an exciting way to spice up our grilling experience. With a whole lot of choices like Korean BBQ, Pepper Steak, Steak ala Pobre, Hickory Smoked and Cajun, I can try one of these out in the near future when I cook my favorite chicken barbecue again.

Here are some Mc Cormic Grill Mates I would like to try out myself:

The famous Korean dish Bulgogi, which means “fine beef” is now readily available to savor with your grilled beef, pork and chicken with McCormick Korean BBQ Seasoning Mix. It has the right mix of bulgogi marinade of soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and other spices to easily provide you an appetizing Korean meal.

“A la Pobre”, which means “of the poor”, is a funny name for a dish rich in taste and flavor to add on your favorite grilled meat or beef, pork and chicken with McCormick Steak a la Pobre Seasoning Mix. The distinct taste of garlic, soy sauce and other special herbs and spices is captured to provide you the exact taste of “a la Pobre” cooking style.

Spice up your grilled beef or pork with McCormick Pepper Steak Seasoning Mix. Made with pepper and garlic bits, it will surely give your grilled meats a flavor boost.


To get a better taste test of the Mc Cormic line of Grill Mates,  Mc Cormic will be hosting an event at Bonifacio Hight Street, BGC. The event called Mc Cormic Grill Nation will showcase all their different seasoning mixes through serving grilled meats that everyone can try out and enjoy! This event will be held on a Sunday, April 7, 2013 from 4 p.m. onwards.

For those of who are interested to join this special foodie event, the Mc Cormic Grill Nation will be held at Bonifacio High Street, Lane O cor. 9th Avenue, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.

The event is not free though. There is an entrance fee of 100 pesos for all those interested. This amount includes all the freebies in store for all the attendees. Plus we all get to taste all the meat samples there with no limit. The entrance fee also includes 5 packs of Mc Cormic Grill mates given to us at the event. Now, I checked out the price tag for the Mc Cormic Grill mates at a nearby grocery (one pack costs 23.50 pesos). Then I compared the standard store price with the Grill Nation fee price tag, and assuming that each pack is at 20 pesos each, going to the event is like buying the 5 packs at discounted price, while getting freebies and eat-all-you-can all rolled into one!

Going to the event also gives us a chance to win a new outdoor griller via raffle. Now, that's taking our grilling FLAVOR to the next level!

To know more about the Mc Cormic Grill Nation event this coming April 7, 2013 at the BGC, Taguig City, you may visit the Grill Nation Facebook page. Click here for more details.