TUESDAY
Sticky Baked Chicken Wings with Pomegranate Molasses | Crisp Salad with Thai Ginger Dressing
It is 5:19pm on Wednesday and I can’t believe that this is the first chance I have had to sit down and share last night’s dinner with you. The week got off to a blazing start with Michael leaving for Finland on Monday and the children home for the Veteran’s Day holiday. An unexpected development in the horse corner of our lives kept me busy for most of the day {and also has prompted an unexpected trip to Portland, Oregon this Saturday for the girls and I} followed by hair appointments for the girls, riding at the barn and an orthodontist appointment for Max. Arriving home after 6pm Monday evening, well, the butternut squash soup on our menu just didn’t happen…we dined on grilled cheese sandwiches and sliced Honey Crisp apples. By the time Michael texted me at 1:30am to let me know he had safely arrived in Germany for his lay over, I had been asleep for hours. Yesterday, while still busy, turned out to be a bit more manageable. I needed to be out all afternoon after school with Mallory but, when we arrived home at 5:30pm, these lovely wings and salad were poised and ready for action. The wings {tossed with the marinade/glaze}, salad {greens washed, dried, and tossed with the chopped vegetables} and accompanying dressing were tucked into the refrigerator before I left for school pick up. Returning home, all I needed to do was transfer the wings to a baking sheet, place in the oven for forty minutes and toss the salad with the dressing. A dinner like this can make you feel like a super hero, especially when the children declared these to be the best sticky wings they have ever had {and I must agree with them}.
The recipe, below, for the chicken wings is my adaptation of the sticky wings found in Nigel Slater’s, The Kitchen Diaries. The original calls for chicken wings to be tossed with a simple sauce of honey, lemon juice, garlic and grainy mustard…
But, for whatever the reason, I was craving a bit more flavor…something dynamic that would introduce the smells and tastes of autumn without adding an overly sweet flavor to the dish {after all, we were coming off of simple grilled cheese sandwiches the night before!}. My choice: a sprinkling of Chinese Five Spice Powder just before putting the wings in the oven to bake…
The honey, lemon, garlic and mustard served as a great base but this intense spice blend of cinnamon, anise seed, cloves, ginger and fennel seed contributed an earthy flavor with a touch of zing. In my opinion it was the flavor that really made the final dish. The children would disagree with me on this…for them, the blue~ribbon addition was pomegranate molasses. I never intended on adding this to the marinade/glaze but, after removing the wings from the marinade onto the baking sheet, the mixture seemed pale and a bit thin for my taste. I didn’t want to add any more honey {fearing an overly sweet taste} and I wanted to deepen the color of the wings…enter, pomegranate molasses. Adding just a tablespoon of this tart/sweet elixir, most commonly found in Mediterranean cooking, to the marinade/glaze resulted in a slightly fruity essence to the wings, a perfect complement to the honey and spices. The result…perfectly sticky {and not too sweet} wings with a bit of spice…
- 24 chicken wings {about 2 pounds}
- 4 tablespoons grainy mustard
- 1 cup raw honey
- 3 large lemons, juiced
- 6 garlic cloves, pressed
- salt & freshly ground pepper
- 1~2 tablespoons Chinese Five Spice Powder
- 1 tablespoon pomegranate molasses
- In a large bowl, whisk mustard, honey, lemon juice, garlic, a pinch of salt & a grind, or two, of black pepper until well combined.
- Toss the wings in the honey mixture and place wings and marinade in a large resealable bag and refrigerate for 1 hour {and up to 3 hours}. Remove wings from the refrigerator 20 minutes prior to cooking and allow to come to room temperature.
- In the meantime, line a baking sheet with foil and place a cooling rack which fits inside the baking sheet. Place wings on the rack over the baking sheet and sprinkle with the Chinese Five Spice Powder. Set aside. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
- Pour marinade into a saucepan and add the pomegranate molasses. Heat over medium~high heat until boiling and then reduce heat to a simmer and cook until mixture is reduced by a third. Remove pan from heat and use 1/2 of reduced glaze to brush on the wings.
- Place the wings into the oven and cook for 20 minutes. Remove wings from oven and brush with remaining glaze. Return wings to oven for another 20 minutes or until they become dark and sticky. Remove from oven and serve immediately.
As luck would have it, a mere 20 pages later in his book, Mr. Slater delivers a recipe for “A Crisp Salad For A Cold Day”. Now, despite a partly cloudy start to yesterday, I can hardly claim that we have hit the “cold” temps here in the SF Bay area but this salad is classic greens + vegetables, with a tangy, light dressing…the crisp, clean flavor of the salad was a perfect foil for the sticky chicken wings.
The salad’s very basic foundation is made up of mixed greens, cilantro, carrot, cucumber and tomatoes but it is given a punch a flavor from the dressing…a combination of fresh ginger, shallot, rice vinegar, sweet chili sauce and a dose of water…
Water? Yeah, I know…but trust me, I performed the experiment and it WORKED! The water kept the dressing really light and focused the flavor on the fresh vegetables, ginger, shallot and the chili sauce. Keep in mind that this salad is meant to be super crisp, so if you are preparing the dish in advance make sure to keep it cold {sans dressing} until you are ready to serve. Your reward will be a super crisp, healthy salad with a punch of flavor to go with those sticky wings…
- 6 cups mixed greens, washed and dried
- 2 cups fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
- 3 plum tomatoes, seeded and diced
- 2 carrots, peeled and diced
- 1/2 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced
- 1-2 tablespoons freshly grated ginger
- 1 shallot, finely chopped
- 1 1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar
- 1 1/2 tablespoons sweet chili sauce
- 3-4 tablespoons water
- Make the dressing by shaking all of the ingredients {ginger ~ water} together in a screw~top jar. Set aside.
- Put the washed and dried salad leaves in a large bowl together with the cilantro, tomatoes, carrots and cucumber. Toss with the dressing and serve immediately.
So, I began this post at 5:19pm…it is now 10:22pm. A few homework problems, dinner, clean up, and 2 loads of laundry have accompanied me on the journey of this post. Thanks for traveling along!
