We are newly minted, but enthusiastic, fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series (we went through the HBO series quickly, and are both working on A Clash of Kings. NO SPOILERS). It’s safe to say that our enthusiasm is only magnified by the great work done over at http://www.innatthecrossroads.com. These wonderful people are blessed by the old gods and the new with a serious talent for bringing the mouth watering medeval-y dishes in the books to life. Their blog is brave, accessible and impressive; as i’m certain their new cookbook is. I’ll find out when we get around to buying it.
We’ve wanted to eat honeyed chicken since reading this passage in A Game of Thrones:
“‘Hungry again?’ he asked. There was still half a honeyed chicken in the center of the table. Jon reached out to tear off a leg, then had a better idea. He knifed the bird whole and let the carcass slide to the floor between his legs. Ghost ripped into it in savage silence.”
Mmmmmm…. Savage ripping and imagining a shiny, sticky bird made of goodness.
No need to convince me further. However, we made a few modifications to the recipe supplied by Inn at the Crossroads’ blog.
Being on the broker side of working class at the moment, we opted to use chicken legs instead of a whole chicken. For six, which is plenty for a nice supper with sides, it was less than $2.00.
We actually changed the recipe back closer to the ancient Roman recipe which provided the backbone for the on at the Inn. We used white wine vinegar and dill, as we had these already.
CHICKEN
- 6 chicken drumsticks or similar
- salt and pepper
- oil for rubbing
- roomy baking pan
HONEY GLAZE:
- 1/3 cup honey
- 1/2 cup vinegar of choice/preference
- Liberal sprinkling of dill
- 3 TBS butter, or more if you are compelled to add along the way.
- A kitchen brush, basting tool
- Wire whisk
- A saucepan
Take the chicken legs, and rub them down with oil, salt and pepper. Preheat the oven to 350*f.
Take a saucepan and pour in the vinegar, honey, dill and butter. Put it on the range on low heat and give it a stir every once in a while. Let it reduce almost the whole time the chicken is cooking.
Don’t eat all the glaze. Don’t. We couldn’t take it, had to do something. A quick baste couldn’t hurt.
Turn the chicken every 15-20 minutes until done so it gets evenly crisp. For these chicken legs it took 45 minutes from room temp. We left the glaze on the range a little tiny bit too long, and it turned almost to a toffy. It was really hard, even when warm, to spread the mixture over the chicken. So we dumped the toffy-honey into the chicken drippings and whisked it around with the brush.
What you get is a glorious pool of painfully rich and perfectly GLAZE.
Now roll the chicken legs around in this.
Transfer to a dish where the honeyed chicken can sit in the glaze, and spoonfulls can be drizzled over everything on your plate. Rice, kale, probably tea. Everything.
Additionally, this recipe is great for kids. My five year old was wary of the sticky goop until it was tasted, after which, everything it touched was promptly devoured. She said it was the best dinner ever.
Not bad! A very traditional meal, with rad context from the very cool ASoIF blog.
hellanoms 