Mar 06 2008
Finger Lickin’ Good Happy Meat
Organic Spare Ribs, Happy Chicken Drumsticks, and Posh Apple Juice. What a marriage!
- Maple Chicken ‘n’ Ribs
This recipe was one of the very first to catch my eye in Nigella Express, back in the innocent, pre-Challenge days. The idea of having a hearty meal that, at the point of getting in from work, needed only arrangement in a tray and then bunging in the oven for an hour whilst I went off and faffed around/had a big Gin appealed greatly. The other night I saw organic free range pork spare ribs in Waitrose and I knew the time was right.
As suggested in the book, these were dead easy to put together. The chicken (drumsticks in our case, it was supposed to be thighs) and pork goes in a bag or bowl, and over the top go lots of tasty flavours; maple syrup, posh apple juice (ooo, I think I’ll have a glass now), star anise, garlic, cinnamon….and then the whole lot melds for 24 or 48 or so hours. Then, hot oven, wee wait, and then smashing hands-on tea.
I didn’t quite get my big drink as planned; in fact whilst these were cooking I did the ironing (good deed in a naughty world) and put together a wee italian salad (spoiled by cheap mozzarella and the avocado being not quite ripe enough). I gave the meat an extra wee blast at the end because I didn’t think they seemed quite sticky enough…a bit too wet really.
In all, whilst this was a scrummy meal, I would say I was a little disappointed it wasn’t a bit stickier. I suppose for that you either have to use some fake stickiness in your glaze, or endlessly baste the meat whilst it is cooking, which is not the point at all! Or maybe more maple syrup. You couldn’t really taste it, after the star anise and ginger, so perhaps doubling that would be a step in the right direction.
It should also be noted that this meat was most delectable cold.
there’s nothing quite like sugar, that’s what the chinese would use I suspect or honey if you want to still be a bit folksy. Looked like a great pile of meat whatever
Sooo… I bought the meat to make this. Any suggestions before I start marinading?
The apple juice is supposed to be ‘as sharp as you can get’ but you couldn’t taste it specifically, so if you couldn’t get anything other than bog standard (we went for cloudy!) then at least you’d probably be upping the sugar content. And yes, I’d add some sugar to the mix.
Aaaaaand, we’re marinating. The meat isn’t totally covered by the goo, should I make sure to turn the lot occasionally? I know ideally it should be entirely immersed, but the vessel I have for it doesn’t quite work perfectly for this and I can’t bring myself to do plastic zip-top baggies.
The recipe was actually available free on foodnetwork.com. w00t!
Okay, I am just going to squee about this chicken for ages. This is going on our “must have this regularly” menu planner. Yum Yum Yum!!! We had it with oven fries (chips cut roughly out of potatoes, skins on, and tossed by hand with a bit of olive oil and italian seasoning, then spread on a baking sheet and tossed in the oven with about a half hour left to go on the chicken. Then we used the broiler (not sure if that’s common in UK ovens - superheaty coil thing at the top usually used to put a nice brown colour on meringues and marshmallows, or to brown the cheese on pizza) for a few minutes to get them bubbly-skinned and brown. Chicken, chips and beer. What a perfect night, and thank you for putting the idea in my head! Yay.
Squidwidget:
We call that a grill. (Though sometimes grills are in a separate little drawer about tall enough for a slim dish.) Strangely enough none of the articles on Wikipedia would lead you to that conclusion — they all show pictures of kettle grills or George Foreman-style grills but none of the ordinary element in the roof of the oven.
Oh. are the grills sometimes on top of the counter? On “How clean is your house?” they are often cleaning out broilerish things on top of the counter. I always wondered if those were for toast or for bacon or something.
Grills are indeed sometimes at the top of the cooker, a so-called ‘eye-level grill’ but they’ve somewhat gone out of fashion. So you often see them on the ancient un-loved kitchens they have in How Clean is Your House but not in much more contemporary. My parents cooker when i was wee, up to the age of about 16 maybe, had one, but since then never. My granny’s ancient cooker still does. Nowadays lots of people have separate hobs and ovens and so the top bit wouldn’t necessarily have anything to be built into.
That is what I’d call a grill, although I would understand other (more north american) uses of the word too. Similarly where you use broil as a verb we’d use grill.
I just want you to know that I have ten pounds of chicken marinating in the fridge, in a bastardized version of this marinade. I added orange juice and honey. And a can of Jamaican-style lemonade (I bought up a ton during the pregnancy and then threw it up once - can’t stand the thought of drinking it now) which might add a kick. Plan to bake it tonight. Whee!
Thank you for the explanation of grill/broil. I am curious about one other thing - on those “How clean is your house” shows, the washer/dryer are usually in the kitchen too. Is that a normal thing?
Ours are in the basement, which was the norm until maybe 5 years ago, when “first floor laundry” became the chichi thing for the McMansions to put in. I dream of a window and view in the laundry room. Maybe someday.