Honey Garlic Chicken

Gorgeous? Yes. Delicious? Heck yeah.

First of all, I must apologize for not posting yesterday. I was just beginning to write when WordPress crashed. Nice, huh?

Anyway, on to the chow!

I bought yet another value pack of chicken leg quarters – I know, I know, but I love $1.50 / pound! So, because I’m a cheapskate (I prefer thrifty), I need to come up with all these interesting ways to make bone-in chicken. I prefer it to be sticky, and preferably roasted or baked – I never trust myself to cook bone-in chicken on the stove top. I never have luck with it. Either overdone or underdone, never Goldilocks perfect.

I thought of Honey-Garlic Chicken, because I love Chinese food (I could eat it ’til I pop), and once I smell it or even think about it, I’m not happy until I eat it. Problem is, I would have to debone the chicken. Now, leg quarters look awfully impressive when left whole, but there’s not a whole heck of a lot of meat on them. If I took the meat off the bone, I would have about a handful of pitiful-looking dark meat to make my stir-fry with. So, I decided to experiment a bit to see if I could come up with a roasted Honey Garlic recipe. Did I? Ooooh yes.

It was beautiful! Simple, easy, sticky, sweet, tangy! And the dipping sauce was sublime – I had to stop Mr. Gorilla from drinking it. Just plain delish.

Honey-Garlic Chicken

Ingredients:

2 chicken leg quarters

1/4 cup ketchup

1/2 cup honey

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

4 cloves garlic, pressed

1 rounded teaspoon ginger

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a Ziploc bag, seal, and give it a good shake to mix. It’s best to mush it around with your fingers a little to make sure the honey and ketchup get combined right.

Add the chicken, and marinate for at least an hour.

After marination (I don’t think that’s a word), place the chicken on the rack of a roasting pan and roast uncovered at 350 for about 45 minutes or until juices run clear.

Just one more thing to do, and you can go one of two ways with this: you can pour the marinade into a small saucepan, or if raw chicken freaks you out, you can mix up another batch of the marinade. Either way, pour it into a small saucepan and bring it to a boil. After one minute of boiling, let it simmer for a few minutes ( about 5).

Use this mixture to baste the chicken 3-4 times before it’s done. Whatever’s left can be served as a dipping sauce.

Now, don’t expect this to taste like Chinese take-out – it’s a totally different creature. But it’s a beautiful creature in its own right! And you know what? I totally made it up! Yup, right off the top of my head. And it worked! I love it when that happens!