Thanksgiving Dinner: Honey Garlic Chicken Thighs

This year, I decided to kick it into gear and make an actual Thanksgiving Dinner for me and my boyfriend.  Every year its tradition for us to go on a hike. This year we did another event (I’ll post it up real soon)  the night before so we took it easy: went out for a little shopping and then came back to prepare for dinner.  Dinner had its problems and some of the food was delayed.  I wasn’t too happy about that but still, my boyfriend was very encouraging and patient with it all.  After all, the food all turned out pretty tasty.

So are you wondering whats on the menu for my Thanksgiving Dinner yet?

Here it is:

Minestrone Soup (as the recipe before, still without turkey and pasta included)

Penne Rigate with Pesto

Oven Baked Turkey Thigh (that was  big one….)

Honey-Garlic Chicken Thighs/Drumsticks (recipe below)

So the star of this post is in fact, the Honey-Garlic Chicken Thighs/Drumsticks.  Originally this recipe is made for Chicken Thighs and to be made on the grill.  However, its too cold for the grill, even if I had one so I just did it in a pan.  Also, I used Chicken Legs so I split it down the middle and had 4 thighs and 4 drumsticks.  Please note that you need to marinate the meat at least 4 hours and preferably overnight so budget your time accordingly.

Here’s the recipe from Looneyspoons Collections by Janet & Greta Podleski:

Recipe name: Honey, I Shrunk My Thighs!

Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:

12 bone-in chicken thighs, skin removed (about 3lbs/1.4kg)

1/2 cup liquid honey

1/4 cup hoisin sauce

3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

3 tbsp reduced-sodium soya sauce

1 tbsp minced garlic

2 tsp gingerroot

1/2 tsp each ground curry and ground coriander

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

 

Directions:

1) Arrange chicken thighs in a shallow glass dish.  Whisk together all remaning ingredients in a small bowl and pour over chicken.  Turn pieces to coat both sides with marinade.  Cover with plastic wrap and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or overnight.

2) Preheat grill to medium setting.  Remove chicken from marinade and place on a grill rack that has been lightly brushed with oil.  Grill thigs for about 10 minutes per side.  Be careful not to burn them.  Serve hot.

Easy, right? I’m starting to really appreciate easy cooking since I’m not that good at it.  This one is awesome. I love learning near marinades for chicken.  I already have one which is similar and I used that one for the turkey this time, adding  a little twist of course.  For this chicken, I also had to make some adjustments to the marinade.  I didn’t have lemons so I couldn’t squeeze fresh juice but I used lemon juice.  I also used normal soya sauce and omitted cayenne pepper.  Everything else remained the same for the marinade.

For the cooking, well, I simmered the chicken in a pan instead of grilling it, for about 20-30 mins on low-medium heat.  It turned out amazing.  My boyfriend is already asking me to do this a second time.  Even though, it turned out that there were little time frame errors and this meal took a bit longer to do.  It was still a nice result. This is a nice little recipe and I do recommend for you to try it out my way.  I’m sure the original will taste awesome too.

Whether you do it in the grill or in the pan, tell me how  it turns out.  Are you going give this a shot eventually one day?

 

 

Sunday Cooking Part 2: Strip T’s (or should I say Strip C’s?)

As a side for my Minestrone Soup (featured yesterday, link provided here as well), I made a dish my new cookbook (that I just bought on Saturday) called Strip T’s.  Wait, lets backtrack, my new cookbook is amazing….it has the wittiest names for the recipes.  I’m still reading through it and it just doesn’t stop cracking me up.  On top of that, it has healthy and delicious-looking recipes. Even the ones with out the pictures of the end results, the ingredients just make it all look fantastic. I seriously can’t wait to try out some more of the recipes.

Okay, back to my Part 2.  So what are these Strip T’s you all may ask? Its turkey strips, of course.  Did any of you guess? Maybe you want to take a guess at which cookbook I have.  I’ll be telling you that in just a bit. Just let me clarify, mine were Strip C’s.  I’m not an expert at making turkey and they aren’t available all the time at the grocery stores so I went with chicken instead.  The chicken strips are coated with coconut shred and sesame seeds.

So lets take a look at what it looked like:

It got a bit burnt on the sides but it was still tasted pretty good.  Note to self, I need to work on multitasking while cooking multiple dishes. Not too bad, right? So you interested in trying this out, here’s the recipe right below.  Its from my new cookbook, as mentioned before: The Looneyspoons Collection: Janet & Greta’s greatest recipe hits plus a whole lot more! by Janet and Greta Podleski.

Strip T’s

Ingredients:

Marinade

1 egg

1/4 cup hoisin sauce

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 1/2 lbs (680g) boneless skinless turkey breast, cut into strips (about 1×4 inches)

Coating

2/3 cup sweetened shredded coconut

2 tablespoon sesame seeds

1/2 cup dry unseasoned bread crumbs

1/4 teaspoon each salt, garlic powder and onion powder

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Sauce

1/2 cup plum sauce

1/3 cup unsweetened frozen pineapple juice concentrate, thawed

1 1/2 teaspoon each yellow mustard and cornstarch

Directions:

1) In a large bowl, whisk together egg, hoisin sauce, and sesame oil.  Add turkey strips and (using your hands) toss to coat with marinade.  Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes (or longer if possible).

2) Meanwhile, place coconut and sesame seeds in a small dry skillet over medium heat.  Cook until golden brown, stirring frequently.  Be careful not to burn them! Transfer toasted coconut and sesame seeds to a small pie plate or shallow dish and let cool.  Add bread crumbs, salt, garlic powder, onion powder and cayenne pepper.  Mix well and set aside.

3) Prepare sauce by combining all sauce ingredients in a small pot. Cook over medium heat until sauce is bubbly and has thickened.  Keep warm.

4) Preheat oven to 450F.  Working one piece at a time, shake excess marinade from turkey strips and roll in crumb mixture.  Make sure strips are well coated with crumbs.  Place on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with cooking spray.  Repeat with remaining strips and coconut mixture.  Spray tops of strips with a light coating of cooking spray.  Bake on middle oven rack for 6 minutes.  Remove from oven and gently turn pieces over.  Spray other side with a light coating of cooking spray return to oven and bake about 4 more minutes, until coating is lightly browned and turkey is cooked through.

5) Serve strips with warm dipping sauce. Enjoy!

What did I do different?  Well, there is a few things as always.  For one, as mentioned, these are Chicken strips so I used boneless skinless chicken breasts.  As for the coating, you will notice that mine doesn’t cover the meat completely and thats because I somehow couldn’t find any breadcrumbs at the grocery so I just took bread and broke it into little pieces.  It did do the job just not as fine as the ready made breadcrumbs.  I’ll have to work on that.  Also, instead of the seasoning they asked for (salt, garlic and onion powder, cayenne pepper), I went straight to use our own spices which already has salt and pepper and a few other ingredients in there.

Aside from that, I didn’t make a sauce and just had it like that.  I’m not a huge fan of plum sauce.  I have to admit Walmart didn’t carry pineapple juice concentrate so I had to skip it.  I wasn’t ready to test out how berry punch concentrate (or iced tea concentrate) mixed as the sauce would be and I’d doubt it’d taste too good mixed with the other sauce ingredients.  If  I had guests, I’d definitely make it though.  It does look like a good mix, especially since they added in the pineapple factor to it.

As for the marinade, it was pretty straightforward (similar to how I marinade my chicken) and I didn’t do any changes to it except for changing the meat.  I did cut too much meat so I ended up frying the rest. This is how that turned out:

Not too bad for my Sunday meal, right? I thought so too.  So before we end this off, the experience of my new cookbook is pretty awesome. If you happen to go past any bookstores, you should give it a read.  They have some little fun facts and cartoon drawings to match the funky names.  Here’s a little fun fact for coconut, it doesn’t only help your body burn fat but it also helps you feel full longer.

Such a motivator to cook when you know what you’re cooking is healthy also!