Sweet and spicy roasted chicken drumsticks

The focus for this year’s Food Revolution Day was about sharing the power of cooking, the benefits of cooking from scratch and, ultimately showing people that changing our food choices can make us both healthier and happier.  Instead of one official recipe as there has been in years past, this year, we had a set of 10 recipes chosen by Jamie Oliver that he deems the “Starter Pack of Cooking”.  Each recipe covers a different skill and technique that can give anyone the confidence to cook good, real, healthy meals for themselves and their families, for now and the future.  Jamie has spoken about the idea of ten recipes to save your life since his TED talk in 2010.  This year, I’ve been sharing my own twist on Jamie’s recipes, showcased along with nine other Ambassador’s ideas over on JamieOliver.Com. You can see previous posts here.

For this month’s Food Revolution recipe twist (our last for 2016!) we worked with Jamie’s Roast Chicken with Potatoes and Carrots.  Now I love a good roast chicken (here’s our standard recipe) and I happen to think it’s one of the easiest dishes ever but I was having a conversation with someone who works in food media recently who told me “Mardi, you think it’s easy because you know how to cook. Lots of people are super intimidated by the idea of roasting a whole chicken.”

This got me thinking and I realise that I do perhaps a skewed vision of what is “easy” or “doable” and my boys’ cooking club members certainly do as well, because of this.  The boys have encouraged me to adopt an even more “can do” attitude because kids inherently believe they can do anything unless they are told otherwise. So, I guess in the kitchen, I might be a bit more gung-ho than many…

Back to that roasted chicken, then.  For this twist, I decided to go small (those who read here often will know how much I like to “minify” everything I do!) and roast some chicken drumsticks instead of a whole chicken. Along with wings, drumsticks seem to feel much more approachable for more people.  This version is a bit of a riff on a family favourite, devilled drumsticks that my mum used to make when I was younger (and not so young!). I’ve updated it and changed a few ingredients based on those I *always* have on hand. So all you really need to pick up at the store is chicken and ingredients for a fresh green salad.

I usually marinate these overnight but you can start the marinating process early in the morning for dinner and they will be just fine. These couldn’t be easier!  And hey, if you like spicy, there’s always the option to add more Tabasco or even a few red pepper flakes.

Yield: 4-6

Sweet and spicy roasted chicken drumsticks

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Sweet and spicy chicken drumsticks that marinate overnight for an easy weeknight meal!

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 35 minutes

Total Time 45 minutes

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup plum sauce
• 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 large garlic clove, minced
• 12 drops Tabasco sauce (or more!)
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 4 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 12 chicken drumsticks

Instructions

1. For the marinade:
2. In a small jug, whisk soy sauce, plum sauce, oil, garlic, Tabasco, coriander and sugar until well-combined.
3. Use a paring knife to cut the chicken skin diagonally, nearly as deep as the bone, 2-3 times per drumstick.
4. Place the drumsticks in a glass bowl and coat well with the marinade. Use your hands to make sure the marinade is coating each drumstick.
5. Cover and refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours. Overnight is best.
6. To cook the chicken:
7. Pre-heat the oven to 400˚F.
8. Line a roasting pan with aluminium foil and place a rack on the foil.
9. Remove the drumsticks from the marinade and place on the rack. Use a spoon to scoop up some of the marinade remaining in the dish to spread on top of the drumsticks.
10. Cook for approximately 35 minutes or until the internal temperature is 165˚F.

Notes

Please note that this requires marinating for a minimum of 4 hours, preferably overnight.

did you make this recipe?

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