Man-pleasing chicken attempt #2

How is everyone this Monday? Did you have a good weekend?

This weekend for us was a pretty relaxing one. My dad left for business so my mom made him some delicious food, which we benefited from. 🙂 The weather was also cooperating, so I managed to fit in two jogs and a hike. The only chore we had to do was our weekly grocery shopping. Normally, we are pretty good about planning our meals for the week. I even have a grocery list app on my phone to keep track of the ingredients I need. But lately, we’ve been too lazy busy to plan ahead. So after our hike, we found ourselves wondering around aimlessly at the grocery store trying to figure out what to make for dinner this week. In these situations, we cruise the meat section for inspiration and the weekly specials and then rack our brains for the ingredients we need to make specific dishes. One dish we decided to make was Korean ribs because we hadn’t had it in a while and already had all the ingredients we needed aside from the ribs. We also decided on man-pleasing chicken so that I could redeem myself and also because we only needed to buy chicken thighs and maple syrup. As you may recall from my last post, I made this chicken dish using chicken breast and regular syrup and half the sauce, which resulted in not-so-pleasing chicken. I was determined to get it right the second time around.

All was well, until I started making the sauce for the chicken. I had forgotten that I’d used up most of the Dijon mustard a couple of days ago to make this dish and as a result I only had about half the amount I needed. Oh crap dear, not again. I had four options:

1. Put on a coat and get in the car to drive to the nearest grocery store to pick up the missing ingredient. I had already settled into comfy home clothes and wasn’t about to go out again.
2. Make something else. The only other meal we had planned for was ribs, which takes hours to marinate and a couple more hours to cook. So this was definitely not an option.
3. Scrounge around the fridge and cupboards to see what we can eat. Sadly, our fridge and cupboards were pretty bare. There were no vegetables or meat. We only had eggs and one pack of chapagetti (Korean instant black bean flavoured noodle) which wasn’t enough for the two of us.
4. Make do with what we have. This is what I chose to do. I made up the rest of the sauce with regular/yellow mustard that we had. I also squeezed some of this mustard into the Dijon bottle to get out any last drop I could and added some whole grain mustard.

So how did it turn out? I am happy to say it was delicious and man-pleasing. It was savoury and sweet. The hubby said you could taste the difference between using maple syrup versus regular syrup, so don’t substitute. The chicken thighs were much better than the breasts. And with only four ingredients and two steps (mix and bake), this dish is also chef-pleasing. 🙂 Hopefully, I will get all the ingredients right next time…..

*Update April 27, 2012:  Third time’s a charm.  I tried this recipe again with all the right ingredients (1/2 cup Dijon mustard, 1/4 cup maple syrup, 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar) and it turned out great!  I used 6 bone-in, skin-on thighs, marinated for 30min in the fridge (optional) and baked at 450ºF for 30min, basting with the sauce half way through.

 Recipe (adapted from wittyinthecity.com):

makes 3 servings

• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
• 1/4 cup regular/yellow mustard
• 1 tsp whole grain mustard
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 1.5 pound of chicken thighs (~6 thighs), boneless and skinless

1. Preheat your oven to 450ºF.
2. Mix together mustards, maple syrup, and rice wine vinegar.
3. Put chicken into an oven-proof baking dish. Salt and pepper the thighs.
4. Pour maple mustard mixture over them, turning the thighs in the mixture so they are fully coated.
5. Put the chicken thighs into the oven, and let them bake for 35 minutes (20 minutes is enough, unless you want the chicken to brown more on the outside) or until a meat thermometer reads 165ºF.
6. Flip chicken and baste with more sauce half way through.
7. Let the chicken rest for 5 minutes before serving.
8. Plate the chicken, making sure to spoon some extra sauce over the top.
9. Sprinkle over some fresh cilantro.

* The original recipe uses 1/2 cup Dijon mustard, so if you have enough, no need to use the other mustards.

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