Currently cooking out of Make It Fast, Cook It Slow by Stephanie O’Dea
Who can resist a recipe nicknamed candy chicken? Add a vegetable and it’s like having your dessert built right in.
So, brown sugar chicken. It’s pretty much what it sounds like. You slow cook chicken thighs (I used skinless, boneless frozen thighs) in a mixture of brown sugar, garlic, soy sauce, white wine vinegar and lemon-lime soda.
Why the soda? I have no idea; I didn’t taste it in the final product and suspect you could easily leave it out or substitute something less sugary.
This dish really couldn’t be easier. I didn’t even bother to thaw out the chicken thighs. I just chucked everything in the slow cooker and let it go. Six or so hours later, I had chicken that was so tender it shredded at the slightest touch. The sauce was sweet, but vinegary.
Before I made this dish, I read through the comments left by other readers and made some changes. First of all, I cut the brown sugar by a third. The original recipe uses 1 full cup, but some readers said the dish was too sweet. I used about 2/3 of a cup of brown sugar. I also threw in some red pepper flakes for some heat. As the chicken neared the done stage, I mixed some cornstarch (roughly 3 teaspoons) with a bit of cold water and added that to the pot to thicken the liquid up a bit. And finally, I added carrots to the pot about midway through the cooking time.
We ate this over brown rice and had leftovers the next day. The dish improved overnight, and I found myself wishing I had more leftovers.
Here’s the recipe on O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/08/crockpot-brown-sugar-chicken-recipe.html
As Linda noted I made this last night cause had to work till 9:30. Cut back on brown sugar like you said. I didn’t have white wine vinegar so used white rice vinegar and cut back a little on that. I used thighs and legs with bone in since that’s all I had. Took the skin off the thighs but hard to get off the legs. Pulled the skin down to the joint and it made me laugh. Looked like their pants were down! Put the carrots in right before I left for work so not too mushy. Linda really liked it and I just warmed some up on the stove for lunch. It is really good but a tad greasy. Not sure cause I had some skin in it or just the tendency of dark meat. I prefer white meat. Was thinking of trying again with chicken breast or turkey breast or maybe some lean pork. (PS…working on that lemon tart thing today but shhh…don’t tell someone!)
We had this last night for dinner. It was really good but didn’t use as much vinegar. I thought it made a great dinner and was quick and easy. I’m hoping that the leftovers will be yummy too. Glad to have tried this one!
This sounds really good. It sort of sounds like my fav. chinese dish. I’m surprised at the usage of soda. I didn’t realize it was handy for that. I got this book from the library and a couple of the dishes are on the trial menu list for the week. I’ll let you know how it turns out!
Ah. Good to know.
I know why soda is called for. It helps to tenderize the meat. I have a few recipes that call for some kind of soda and I tried making one of them with juice instead, it didn’t turn out the same. The meat was chewy. So go with the soda