Honey Lime Drumsticks

Honey-Lime Drumsticks just removed from the cast-iron grill pan and ready to rest before serving.

When I made the food plan for the week, I had a slew of whole chicken legs and some drumsticks in the freezer. Rather than buying additional flesh as I tend to do ("it's on sale!"), I wanted to eat what I had on hand before it became too old and tasteless and/or freezer burned and tasted like shit.

Let's talk about freezer burn for a brief second. That's what happens to your food when it oxidizes in the freezer when not completely removed of all air. Because I don't have a super fancy rig to suck all of the air out of my Ziploc bags, the flesh I've purchased in bulk and stowed in the freezer is potential for freezer burn. I say that like freezer burn is a bug, but it's not. It's simply oxygen. If you are like me, where you stick some meat into a bag and roll it up tight against your gut expressing the air before zipping the bag shut, beware of freezer burn.

It won't kill you, but it will make your food taste like shit. So be sure to rotate your frozen food items regularly. The primary reason I'm conscious of freezer burn is because of my meat packing plant experience. Freezer-burned flesh does not fly in the eyes of the USDA. If it can't go into a hot dog per the USDA, where hair and flies are allowed in reasonable limits and fat beyond reasonable excess, do you think it's a good idea to happily keep and eat freezer burned flesh at home? Didn't think so.

I saved some frozen drumsticks from garbage-dump fate by utilizing this recipe. You should do the same.

Honey Lime Drumsticks
adapted from foodies @ home

4 chicken drumsticks
2 tbsp canola oil
6 tbsp soy sauce
7 tbsp honey
juice of 3 limes
zest of 1 lime
2 garlic cloves (crushed)
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp chili garlic sauce

Whisk all ingredients together in a large bowl; add chicken and marinate 1 hour or more.

My drums were allowed to marinate an hour and 40 minutes at room temperature, turning once in a while.

Once ready to cook, remove the chicken from marinade and pour the marinade into a small saucepan and simmer, reducing sauce into a glaze. Set aside.

My marinade was allowed to heat, the majority of the time boiling, for 40 minutes reducing it to a very thick sauce. I don't know that I'd call it a glaze as it was quite chunky. The consistency was possibly more like a chutney? Hey, I'm no expert, just The Cook; and I'm just sayin' I don't know that this falls into "glaze" category.

Preheat a cast iron grill pan over the stove-top. Grill chicken over medium heat  making sure not to burn the skins. Brush the drumsticks on every side multiple times so the chicken has a nice thick glaze and chicken is cooked through.

Remove the chicken from heat and let rest loosely covered. Then eat the chicken drums with some Roasted Yams and Baked Corn-on-the-Cob. Those posts are coming up next.

The recipe was not difficult to prepare. The most difficult part was staying on the chicken to turn it and brush with the reduced marinade while making sure the skin didn't burn.

Tastewise, the chicken was good but not anything better or more outstanding than drumstick recipes I've tried previously: Honey-Soy Glazed Drumsticks comes to mind immediately. For me, the quantity of "glaze" on these drums was in the excess category. I brushed nearly all of the reduced marinade on the drumsticks, which allowed a lot of it to leak into the grooves of the cast-iron grill pan (which will make the grill pan most fun to clean later, I'm sure). And more than that, the quantity of glaze was nearly overwhelming as it resulted in a serious coat on the chicken. If you are a sauce or thickly-sauced chicken fan, this is for you.

In the future, I'd double the amount of chicken in the marinade or cut the marinade in half. For me, it was just too much.

Would I do the recipe again? Sure, keeping in mind my previous comments.

Cost:

• you know what? I'm going to SWAG this one since I had the majority of stuff on hand, calling it $3 to prepare.

That makes each drum $0.75 and I have a feeling my SWAG was on the large side since my drumsticks came from whole chickens likely purchased for $0.59-0.99/lb.

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