Indonesian Ginger Chicken

Are you sick of me blogging about how much I love Barefoot Contessa? Gabe always tells me if I love her so much I should just marry her. Too late for BC, honey - I already married you. Besides, you're waaaaaay cuter. ;)

Her food is just so..awesome. This super simple Indonesian Ginger Chicken is SO GOOD. A great prescription for my chicken hoarding problem. I hoard whole chickens when the price dips to anywhere around $0.70/lb. Hoard, friends. Just stick them in the freezer. I wish I had an extra freezer but I have no room for it. Therefore I can only hoard 2 or 3 max since my freezer elicits gasps of horror from my sister-in-law and mother at the sight of how gorged it is w/ food. I'm getting better.

Tell me you don't want to eat this for dinner:

Told you.

Let's begin.

I've been on a ginger kick lately too. Ginger is really good for inflammation and I have rheumatoid arthritis, so it's supposed to help.

Tip: I've said it before folks, peel and freeze your ginger. It grates up so nicely straight out of the freezer. Like ginger snow. Super finely grated ginger. And you don't waste a bit if you peel with a spoon. It just barely scrapes the paper thin skin off the ginger. Double bag it and it lasts in the freezer forever.

Dump the honey in a saucepan.

Soy sauce to follow.

Ginger, grated on a microplane.

Lots of garlic.

All the kids get dumped in the pool.

Bring to simmer, take off the heat.

Let cool.

Meanwhile, get the chickens butchered.

Set yourself up for success here. Have your sheet pan nearby and your meat cutting board ready to put into the dishwasher.

Remove the neck bones, liver and/or gizzards. Lisa loves that part. Then cut the backbone out. Just use the little chicken butt as a guide to cut about a 1" wide spine out of the chicken.

Use some heavy duty kitchen scissors if your knife isn't working.

I leave the thigh and drums together as well as the breast and wing. Big big meaty pieces.

Then take your cooled marinade and dump it on the chicken. Skin side down.

I made the mistake of not lifting the pieces up so the marinade could get underneath the chicken.

Get it all over the chicken. I'm an equal opportunity marinader.

This sauce smells awesome.

Everyone happy?Happy.

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

This is what they look like after a little sleepover in the marinade.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and put this thing in the oven (foil on please).

After 30 minutes, you're going to remove the foil and it'll look like this. Freaky 1/2 cooked chicken. Calm thyself.

Flip it over so the skin side faces up. Now crank up the heat to 375 degrees and bake for another 30 minutes.

Then you'll get this.

Glorious golden sweet gingery garlic goodness.

Leftovers were amazing. I ate both hot and cold. Both awesome.

I loved the charred pieces.

That skin. Awesome.

BC's Indonesian Ginger Chicken

a direct recreation from this Barefoot Contessa recipe

makes 6-8 servings

1 cup honey
3/4 cup soy sauce (I used low sodium)
1/4 cup minced garlic (I just put a full head of garlic)
1/2 cup peeled and grated ginger root
2 (3-4 lb) chickens, quartered, backbones removed

Put the honey, soy, garlic & ginger in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Immediately after it comes to a boil, remove from the heat, let cool.

Butcher your chicken into eight large pieces. No sissy pieces here, friends. Put the chicken skin side down on a baking sheet - something w/ sides, I used my trusty half sheet pans.

Pour the cooled marinade over all the chicken, slather. Make sure the skin side is down but the marinade gets all underneath as well. After all the chicken is coated, cover with aluminum foil and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. When heated, put chicken (still covered with foil) into oven and bake for 30 minutes. The chicken will look half cooked, it is. Don't worry. Flip everyone over so skin side is up and turn oven up to 375 degrees. Bake for another 30 minutes until skin is nice and golden. Some of the little wing tips may be a little charred, delish! To check for doneness make sure all the joints don't have any blood and there isn't anymore pink flesh.

Sesame Ginger Steak Salad w/ Ginger Dressing

This blog is making me fat. Did you see the past 3 posts? I have way to any baked goods in this house. Dessert and treat blogs are more fun but now it's time for some sensible food.

This steak is so yum.


Sesame Ginger Steak

this was enough to marinate a flank steak a little over 1 lb.

2 tbsp. sesame oil
2 clove garlic, grated
1" garlic, grated
1/4 c. low sodium soy sauce
3 tbsp. rice wine vinegar

I like to peel and freeze my ginger so it's super easy to grate on a microplane (Rachael Ray tip, love). If yours isn't frozen, no worries. Just grate about 1 tbsp. of ginger, grate garlic and mix the rest of the ingredients together. Pour over steak in a ziplock bag and refrigerate for at least 3 hours - overnight is better.

Preheat a cast iron skillet on high heat. Take the steak out of the marinade and discard the bag. When the skillet is smoking, put the steak on. My steak was about 3/4" thick. Cook for about 4 minutes on first side and about 3 minute on the other for a medium rare steak. After cooking, let the steak rest for 7-10 minutes before slicing. Slice and serve on top of your favorite salad greens and ginger dressing (recipe follows), sprinkle w/ sesame seeds. I imagine it would be fantastic as lettuce wrap fodder as well.

Ginger Dressing

makes 2-3 servings

1/4 c. low sodium soy sauce
1" ginger, grated
1 clove garlic, grated
1 tsp. lemon zest
1 tbsp. sesame oil
2 tbsp. honey (or agave nectar)
2 tbsp. lemon juice (or rice wine vinegar)
2 tbsp. canola oil (any light flavorless oil works)
1 tsp. toasted sesame seeds
dash white pepper, optional

Mix everything together and serve over the steak and your favorite salad mix. This dressing is great on chicken or shrimp too. This is a total guideline, make sure you taste the dressing before you dress the salad - add whatever you like if it's not quite to your liking. Enjoy!