Chinese 5 Spice Chicken with Soy and Honey...cluck cluck!!

Chinese 5 Spice Chicken with Soy and Honey…as promised…the chicken!! Another regular at home – sometimes with rice but more often with a huge salad on the side

Chinese 5 Spice Chicken with Soy and Honey

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken thighs and 2 drumsticks, bone in and skin on, ( you can go without skin and/or use chicken breasts if you want to go low cal, just adjust cooking time accordingly), weighed around 600 gms
• Scallions/spring onions or Chives, finely chopped, to garnish (optional)

For the marinade:

• Chinese 5 spice powder, ½ tbsp
• Soy sauce, 1 tbsp
• Honey, 1 tbsp
• Shaoxing rice wine or white wine, 1 tbsp
• Garlic powder, ½ tbsp OR Garlic cloves, finely chopped, 3-4 cloves
• Ginger paste, 1 tbsp (please don’t substitute with ginger power, it has a completely differently flavor profile)
• Red Chili flakes or Pepper powder, ½ tbsp or to taste
• Salt, to taste
• Oil, 1 tbsp

Instructions:

Whisk together all the marinade ingredients in a large flat dish. Add the chicken pieces to the marinade and mix well to coat.

Cover the dish and let it rest in the refrigerator for a minimum of 2-3 hours or up to overnight.

Bring the chicken back to room temperature and preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

You can...

EITHER:

Lightly grease the baking rack with place it on a foil covered baking dish. Arrange the chicken pieces in a single layer on the rack.

Cook uncovered, basting once or twice with the marinade, until the chicken is done, about 50 minutes with last 10 minutes at 200 degrees C.


OR:

If you want a little sauce to go along with rice, place the chicken with the marinade and 1 tsp of oil mixed in in a baking dish. 

Cover the dish with foil and bake for 40 minutes and then uncovered for the last 15-20 minutes at 200 degrees C. 

The juices from the chicken along with the marinade will give you just about enough sauce to drizzle over the rice.

Notes:

• Chinese 5 spice powder is readily available in markets and is normally a blend of equal quantities of ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground star anise , roasted and ground fennel seeds and roasted and ground Szechuan peppercorns. Some blends may also contain nutmeg and ginger. 

• 5 Spice blend is quite potent and may leave a slightly bitter taste if use in excess. Always use a small quantity. ( just like our very own Garam Masala)