Garlic Honey Chicken

My Friday night dinner is absolutely gold…at least to me.

I set out to do a garlic/honey chicken I saw on YouTube and I came up with a complete surprise.

When I was in middle school and high school, to support my photography hobby (which led directly to my life in newspapers/magazines) I mowed the yard of the guy across the street from me. He lived in NY, but had a local Japanese restaurant. When I would go there to get paid ($20 a month back in the 70’s bought all my darkroom chemicals and film) they would always serve me some chicken teriyaki on rice. It was great.

As an adult, I have always tried to replicate that flavor, and I never did. Until tonight. Completely by accident. The key to the sweetness was honey.

So, I give you my Garlic Honey Chicken.

Ingredients

2 lbs Chicken drumsticks

5 Garlic cloves

1 Onion, small

1/4 cup Chicken broth

1/2 cup Honey

2 tbsp Soy sauce

1 tsp Cornstarch

1/4 tsp Red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper to taste

1tbs Olive oil

Put the chicken into a roasting pan with some pepper (and salt if you like). Cook at 400° for 15 minutes. The goal here is to render out the chicken fat.

Meanwhile, put the olive oil into a cast iron skillet (or dutch oven) and saute the onion, then add the garlic and red pepper flakes for about a minute. Add the honey and soy sauce. Mix up the corn starch and chicken stock and add to mix and stir with a low heat.

Take the chicken out of the oven and put into the skillet and keep rotating to coat. Put this into the oven for 15 minutes. While this happened I made some jasmine rice. At the 15 minute mark, rotate the chicken. At this point I let the rice rest. I turned on the broiler for just over a minute to crisp up and blacken the top of the chicken. Barely.

I sliced up some carrots and zucchini, tossed it with some olive oil and seasoned it with Italian seasoning and a very small amount of salt. I put this into my air fryer for 10 minutes. Carrots on top, zucchini below.

I plated the meal, spooning the drippings on top of the chicken that was on the rice, and then added the veggies.

When I sat down to eat…the flavor that alluded me all these years hit me. That sweet teriyaki sauce. It wants a hint of ginger, but it was absolutely that flavor. Thanks to my friend Jim Goetz who gave me a bottle of local honey that I used in this recipe.

In the near future I’m going to work up a recipe specifically for this teriyaki sauce, all it really needs is a hit of ginger.