Wednesday, April 29, 2009

The BEST Honey Chicken- My favorite dinner growing up

Everyone has a favorite meal. My favorite meal growing up was my mothers honey chicken. I loved it then and I love it now and it has since become one of my husbands favorite dishes too. It is the kind of dish my mother would often make for guests when they would come over for dinner and I have done the same. I am yet to find anyone who doesn't LOVE it. This recipe makes for a moist, fall off the bone chicken with a wonderful sauce that will leave you wanting to lick your plate.

This dish can be served over rice or pasta noodles. My favotite way to serve it is over hot buttery noodles. This recipe makes a fair amount of sauce. For me there is nothing like honey chicken served over a bed of hot buttery noodles swimming in the honey sauce. If you try this recipe I guarantee you will not be dissapointed.

I'm not sure of the name of the cookbook that this recipe came from. I scribbled the recipe down when I was preparing to leave home to move to the States as I knew it was a dish I would make time and time again. For me this is another comfort food.

Honey Chicken

Easily Serves 6 people (see note below)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup of honey
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
4 teaspoons of worcester sauce
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
1 teaspoon of grated green ginger (I used the minced kind you can find in a small glass jar at the supermarket)
2 cups of chicken stock (or 2 cups of water and two chicken boullion cubes crushed)
6 teaspoons of cornflour
1 tablespoon of water
Chicken drumsticks or other bone in chicken meat (I prefer drumsticks)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Place chicken in 13X9 baking dish and cook for 40 minutes. While chicken is cooking prepare sauce.

In a medium sized saucepan melt butter. To melted butter add honey, soy sauce, worcester sauce, lemon juice, ginger and stock stir to combine. Once combined mix cornflour and tablespoon of water in a separate container to make a paste. Add cornflour mixture to saucepan and with the heat on medium high stir sauce mixture until the sauce begins to thicken. The sauce will thicken to a runny gravy time consistency but will continue to thicken in the oven once you pour it over the chicken.

Once the chicken has cooked for 40 minutes remove the chicken from the oven and pour the sauce over the top of the chicken. Put the dish back in the oven and cook for another 40 minutes. The longer you let the chicken cook with the sauce, the more tender the chicken will become.

Serve chicken over a bed of your favorite noodles. ENJOY!

You can almost see the chicken bubbling in this picture. I took this photo right as I pulled them out of the oven.


***note***- This recipe makes enough sauce to cover a full 9X13 pan full of chicken with enough sauce for all to enjoy over noodles or rice. In my 9x13 pan I was able to fit 11 drumsticks. This amount can easily feed 6 adults allowing them to have 2 chicken drumsticks each.

1 comment:

Mumsy said...

Could I use boneless? I'm thinking this would be amazing with chicken thighs. I'm putting it on the menu for next week!