Honey-Garlic Chicken With A Few Other Tidbits

It always seems that Friday brings on the stories... so here is a pretty good one for readers of Help! I Have A Fire In My Kitchen. If you remember last week I posted, Mr. Potato Head - The Good Ole' Potato Recipe. In it I told you the father of a friend of mine is recuperating from difficult heart surgery. Anyway, this week it turns out she had guests she had to feed for Friday night dinner. So since I was making chicken for my own children, I told her not to worry, to bring over a chicken and I would just make two of them together. No real big deal ...

No big deal - USUALLY! But life with Teddy is always full of surprises. So there I was preparing the chickens and they were in the oven, timed to the minute to be ready to be picked up before the Sabbath which began around 5:25 PM, when a little before 4 PM - BANG! - all the electricity goes out in this dumb abode. Well turns out a major fuse had burned out, and the electric company had to come to replace it. They were actually really great and by 4:30 I had electricity back. Now I had to pray that the chicken, rice, potatoes and sweet potatoes were all going to get done in time. (Well the rice was on the flame - gas but of course I was sure it was going to screw up as well!)

Well folks, by 5:20 those suckers were out of the oven - all made, and I even made it to Friday night prayers in the Synagogue. So HAH!

The picture below was taken like at 5:18 and please excuse the parsley all over. I kind of cheated and before she took the chicken and rice I just let the parsley fall where it would - I was really kind of pressed for time. But all is well that ends well.

O.k. what the hell is in this dish? Here you go...actually fairly easy to make. Everyone I know likes crispy chicken skin, which is not as easy to make sure comes out as it sounds, but I will try and explain it below.

Utensils You will need:

1. Either an aluminum foil pan or a good oven tempered bowl or pan (I used the above to cook one chicken and a bowl to cook the other)
2. Big serving fork and knife to test the chicken while cooking
3. Oven gloves - go ahead laugh but I did burn my finger on this one, because I was really *&^%$$ when the electricity went out.
   
4. Cutting board
5. Cutting knives
6. Aluminum Foil
   

Ingredients:

1. 1 whole chicken - either fresh or defrosted but make sure it is totally defrosted! If you are caught and need to defrost it fast well that I will teach you how to do in another post.
2. 1-2 medium sized Onions
3. 1 Fresh Garlic
4. 4-5 Tablespoons of Honey
5. Off the rack supermarket "Chicken Grill Spice" (you can make your own here but now is not the time - this is how the above was made)
6. Parsley for the end if you like (but much less than I threw on the chicken!)
7. 1-2 Tablespoons of olive oil depending on size of chicken of course.
8. (If you like the stuff you can use one of the various "bbq" sauces on the market. But not too much of the stuff. Just a bit. Like 2-3 Tablespoons worth over the chicken.
9. If you want to make the Sweet Potatoes you see cut up on the sides of that plate then just get 2-3 of them, leave them whole, wash them off and wrap them each separately in aluminum foil. Suggestion would be to put them in a bowl of their own as they kind of "leak" while cooking.
   

Directions:

1. Place the chicken in the bowl you are going to cook it in.
   
2. Pour the olive oil over the chicken.
3. Cut up onion(s) chop or grate or however you like it. If grated then you should just put the onion all over the chicken so that it can seep in. If chopped just place the onion all around the chicken.
4. Same with the garlic btw. Either chop or grate.
   
5. Hint: Put one clove and a few chopped pieces of onion inside the chicken cavity.
6. If you are using a bbq sauce then now is the time to put it on and spread it around!
   
7. Pour the honey all over the chicken.
8. Let it sit in a corner now for at least 30-45 up to 2-3 hours minutes so the seasoning can seep in a bit.
   
9. When you are ready to cook. Preheat oven to 200° C. (390° F.)
10. If you are making the sweet potatoes just put them in the oven and take them out after you take the chicken out. They should be soft after around 60-90 minutes in that heat.
    
11. Sprinkle real lightly (for now) the "chicken grill spice" all over the chicken especially the part that will now be facing the heating element or exposed to the gas heat in the oven.
12. Cover the whole chicken for now with aluminum foil.
13. Place chicken in oven for only 15-20 minutes - we are just bringing the temp up to cooking temp.
    
14. When 15-20 minutes are over open oven door, and with your oven gloves on, (pfffttttttt!) pull out the chicken.
15. Remove the aluminum foil and sprinkle the chicken spice again over the exposed part of the chicken. (It should be covered with the chicken spice if you want crispy skin.)
    
16. Get that sucker back in the oven for 20-30 minutes without the aluminum foil now. (Here I say 20-30 minutes because this really depends on the size of the chicken and how much your oven loves you. Be careful here cause this really requires a knowledge of when your oven is acting up or is out to take revenge on you or is in it's "Hey I am the best damn oven you ever had" mood. - Mine seems to always be in the mood of "What can I do today to give Teddy high blood pressure? I love it when his ears turn purple.) All in all your chicken will be cooking between 70-100 minutes.
    
17. When the time is over take out the chicken and turn it over. (Chickens do have top, bottom and two sides when you cook.) By the way by now you should see lots of juice in the pan. That is the chicken gravy as well and will be great when you serve the chicken.
18. 20-30 minutes on the other side.
19. Now look at the chicken. It is going to need (depending on size again) around 15-20 minutes once again on each side. You repeat above sprinkling the "chicken spice" but now waiting until you see the skin turn crispy before turning the chicken over.
20. Do NOT overcook. Dry chicken is horrible!
21. Take the chicken out and sprinkle a bit of parsley over it. (If you made the sweet potatoes take them out, cut them in thirds or halves and put them around the chicken.)
    
22. Ta-Da!
23. You will not have any change. Guaranteed!
    

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You do not need a whole chicken to make this one. You can use all wings, or drumsticks or just chicken breasts. But the amounts and timing in the oven must be adjusted accordingly. When serving just ask the person if they want added sauce or not. Or let them dig in themselves.

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Tags: Cooking, Baking, Recipe, Cooking Related Appliances, Humorous Stories, Ingredients, Kitchen Appliance, Parve (Meat or Milk) Recipe, Kitchen Utensils, Kosher, Meat Recipe, Milk Recipe, Kosher Home, Spices, Single Parenting, Vegetarian, Cooking Stories