Saturday, April 9, 2022

H is for Hot Honey Chicken

 

#AtoZChallenge 2022 Blogging from A to Z Challenge letter


I have been following food blogger Tiegan Gerard's  "Half Baked Harvest" on Facebook and Instagram for a year or so. The photos of her food always look so scrumptious that I want to lick the screen, but I have never MADE one of them. I've said for years that I want to have my own cooking show where I make food without reading the entire recipe first nor checking to see if I have all the ingredients needed, because that's how I roll when I'm in the kitchen, and I'm going to call it "The Half-Assed Cook." 

I saved one of her recipes a few months ago, and boy, did it come in handy when I needed something for "H"! The full recipe title is "Oven Baked Southern Hot Honey Popcorn Chicken." I vowed to myself that I would follow the entire recipe to a "T," instructions, ingredients, and all, and I almost did it. I also optimistically decided to double the recipe.

After a semi-quick trip to Walmart (where I found out some of their family pack boneless, skinless chicken breasts were $2.18 per pound and some of them were $2.38 per pound, so I had to dig around to find one as close to 4 lbs as possible that also cost $2.18 and also), I got to work.

I trimmed the ooky stuff off the chicken breasts and cut them into one inch-ish cubes, then tossed them in beaten egg. The chicken noogies were then individually rolled in crushed cornflakes that were mixed with flour, salt, pepper, and smoked paprika (had to buy that). The noogies were baked for 20 minutes, turning them over halfway through, and when they were cool enough to eat, you would have sworn they were deep fried. Thanks, cornflake crumbs!


Noogies tossed in egg

My husband walked through the kitchen when I was turning the noogies over and asked if I had drizzled olive oil over the chicken before I put it in the oven. Nope, I answered. Didn't the recipe call for that? Nope, I replied, pissed that he was trying to micromanage my cooking and smug that, for once, I was sticking to the recipe and not going rogue. 

Then I looked at the recipe as I started the sauce and saw the words, "Drizzle with olive oil."  Oops. So close. So, so close. The noogies were perfectly crispy and delicious without the drizzle of olive oil, thank you for asking.

I forgot to take a photo of the noogies on the baking
sheet before going into the oven, so I had to risk 
losing my eyebrows from the heat to take this one instead.

The sauce was melted butter, garlic, honey, chili powder (Williams Chili Seasoning, the only kind I will ever use), more smoked paprika, regular paprika, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes, and onion powder. Once the butter was melted and it and the garlic were golden brown, the rest of the sauce ingredients were whisked in and the sauce was done. 


Stirring the sauce in skillet #2


Of note is that my husband offered to make rice for me while I made the chicken, and I was grateful for that, because I had cornflake crumbs and paprika on most of the kitchen surfaces and had to wash the turntable from the microwave because instead of softening the butter, I melted it and everything was a greasy mess. Instead of making it in a saucepan, however, he went to elaborate lengths to make it in a glass 9x13 baking dish covered tightly with foil and wanted it in the oven, where I had FOUR POUNDS OF CHICKEN NOOGIES BAKING. I didn't stab him, but I considered it briefly.

Tossing the chicken in the sauce.

But when I served the meal to my husband and dad, my husband took a bite and immediately said, "Where has this been all my life?!" He pronounced it delicious and amazing and ate three helpings. I tentatively took my first bite (worried that he was being nice and I had actually burned the butter and garlic rather than just cooking them until golden) and he was right! It WAS delicious and amazing and totally worth cutting ooky parts off of four pounds of chicken and destroying the kitchen and having to wash three large bowls, two skillets (I started the sauce in a medium skillet, per the recipe, without thinking that I was doubling the recipe), cutting board, knives, three baking sheets, tongs, whisk, measuring spoons and cups, spatulas, a food processor, baking dish from the rice, the dinner dishes, and a partridge in a pear tree.


I failed to center my food on my plate


Or as my husband said, "It's butter and honey and fried chicken. How could it be bad?"

Make this. Make this make this make this. 

Small portion of the messy kitchen

22 comments:

  1. Mmm, delicious. I also start cooking before I check to see if I have all of the ingredients and, then, I start in with mad substitutions. Sometimes, they taste great, but it's an experiment that I can't usually reproduce!!

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    1. Someone else in the same cooking club as me! I also leave out ingredients I don't like :D

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  2. Replies
    1. This stuff is amazing! It had a good burn, and plain rice with it was perfect!

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  3. It does look and sound delightful.

    To have very happy rice, pour rice in the bottom of a heavy pot, how much is up to you and how much rice your family eats. Cover with water until the water is above the rice about an inch. Add butter and salt if you want. Bring it to a boil and let it boil down until the water and rice are even. Pop on a tight-fitting lid and set it on the back of the stove (no heat) until dinner is ready, i usually leave it an hour or so, and have left it up to three hours.

    You know how you feel happy when you get out of a steam bath? Your rice will be just as happy steaming this way, and because you started it at the beginning of the meal and then left it to itself, it's one less thing to worry about when you're in the thick of choping and mixing and turning things in the oven.

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    1. I will share your rice technique with my husband. He's always trying to build a better mousetrap, so to speak :)

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  4. It looks delicious! I've been trying to follow recipes to a T when it comes to the quantity of the ingredients. Usually I would put in more of say chicken than was called for but now trying to measure and follow the directions more carefully. Of course I'm not the cook in the family, my hubby is, but I find the recipes and then he cooks them :) I found if you want to melt butter without it exploding all over the microwave, cook it not at full power but like 30% and put a paper towel over the bowl where the butter/margarine is. It doesn't splatter that way.

    betty

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    1. I always MEAN to follow recipes to a T, but I realize I'm missing an ingredient (or five) or don't have the right size of something or just get distracted by something shiny and whoops! My husband cooks most of the real food at our house and I do the baking!
      The microwave I was using this weekend was the one at the lake house that my dad bought at an auction. He never uses the different power levels, which is good, because they DON'T WORK. And since I hadn't planned well, my butter was frozen and it all went downhill from there!

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  5. That sounds really, really good. I'm usually not a fan of recipes that claim baked chicken is just like fried chicken, but it sounds like the cornflakes make a huge difference. I always end up trashing the kitchen when I cook. My mom used to joke that the kitchen in their house cringed whenever I came over to cook after I had moved out.

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    1. I've never been fooled by oven fried food before, but this stuff was amazing! Had to be the cornflakes. I'm a total kitchen trasher when I cook, too, as you could probably tell!

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  6. This sounds kind of good to me, but I'm not sure my wife would go for it. The rice she definitely would want, but she might be hesitant about the chicken.

    Arlee Bird
    Tossing It Out

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    1. That chicken, or the sauce, actually, had quite a kick to it! A good kick, though. It wasn't too much. Would be easy to tone it down

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  7. How did I miss this post? It sounds delicious and nice and spicy which I love. The cleanup is always the worst - at least you got something tasty to enjoy before dealing with that part. Weekends In Maine

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    1. It was SO GOOD! Now that I know how to make it, I think it won't be quite as messy as the first time.

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  8. I am a vegetarian....but it does look great.... all the effort spent totally worth it


    Jayashree writes

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    1. I wonder if it could be made with cauliflower? I might try that.

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  9. A friend turned me onto Half Baked Harvest on Pinterest. She has great recipes!

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    1. Now that you've said that, I'm pretty sure I found half baked harvest through you!

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  10. Oh that looks so good. I often cook my fried chicken in the oven now using Ritz crackers crushed as the coating... it is very tasty.

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    1. A good, crunchy coating makes all the difference in oven frying!

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