21 June 2010
Recipe - Sweet Barbecue Style Chicken Legs
We are always looking for ways to liven up chicken to feed the kids - simple, tasty and quick & easy family food. This recipe is something I devised for Sweet Barbecue Style Chicken Legs is so quick to make that our children both love to help to make it and then wolf it down when it has been made, making it into one of those really magic types of family food; and if you make extra, then you can take the remainder to work and eat as part of your packed lunch. We actually just roast these in the oven, but you can barbecue them by part cooking them in the oven, then smoking them off for the last 10 minutes on the barbecue.
Flavour wise, this is honey sweet with a massive umami kick from the soy sauce, plus some savoury bite coming through from the Southern Fried Chicken Seasoning and grainy mustard. I like to add beer or wine to the sauce to layer in an extra flavour to compound up the taste, but you could omit this should you wish.
Ingredients:
10 chicken drumsticks (get the best quality you can afford as it really does make a difference)
2tbsp organic tomato ketchup
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
2tbsp Fairtrade runny honey (this is quite sweet so you might want only 1tbsp)
2tbsp lager or white wine
1tbsp organic sunflower oil
1tsp Steenbergs organic onion granules (or quarter onion very finely chopped)
1 clove garlic, thinly sliced and crushed
1tsp Steenbergs organic Southern fried chicken seasoning
1tsp grainy mustard (I used a balsamic mustard from Edinburgh Preserves)
1. Put all the marinade ingredients together in mixing bowl and whisk together.
2. Cut a couple of slices into each of the chicken drumsticks and place onto a roasting tin. Drizzle the marinade over each of the chicken drumsticks and twist them through the barbecue marinade. Cover and then put into the refrigerator for 1 hour to let the flavours infuse through the chicken drumsticks; if you remember, twist them through the barbecue marinade part way through the marinading time.
3. Preheat the oven to 180oC / 350oF. Roast for 30 minutes; try and twist the drumsticks after about 20 minutes. If barbecuing, cook for 20 minutes in the oven then brown off over the barbecue.
4. Serve immediately. We ate ours with saffron boiled rice and boiled broccoli and runner beans. You could leave to cool and then enjoy cold in a picnic or for packed lunches.
