Bourbon Chicken
So, last night I accidentally re-invented this recipe, then Googled it and found it’s pretty much a Chinese takeout standard. But this isn’t how you’ve had it at PF Chang’s. So forget what you think you know about bourbon chicken and free your mind, son.
You’re gonna need a chicken. I used some thigh quarters, but a whole roasting bird works or you could do this with wings and drumsticks or whatever. You might need to adjust the amount of marinade you make if you’re going to do up more than about a pound and a half of chicken.
Next, prepare the marinade:
- 1/3 cup bourbon
- 1/2 cup black strap molasses
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp paprika (smoked paprika if you can get it)
- 1/4th tsp cayenne
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
Marinate that shit for a good while, you can stick it in the fridge overnight, or if you roll like a gangsta you just take your ziplock freezer bag of frozen chicken limbs, fill it with marinade, make sure there’s no air in the bag and stick that in a sink full of warm water and let it defrost so you don’t lose any natural juices and it marinates quicker and with less liquid. About two hours later you are ready to rock and/or roll. Salt and pepper the skin of your chicken liberally, and by liberally I mean take that pepper mill and make it snow.
I smoked mine in my homemade backyard smoker, but you can puss out and just stick it in a casserole dish and oven roast it if you want- remember to add a bit of leftover marinade to your baking dish. You can baste it with a bit of butter mixed with molasses to get that skin to crisp up and help keep it moist. Refer to my previous post about roasting chicken for cooking times, or get smart and buy a nice digital instant-read thermometer.