Friday, March 18, 2016

Chicken BBQ Lollipops

Success is guaranteed! Your kids will be begging for it! This chicken-on-a-stick is the most humble recipe for chicken drumsticks you ever come across. Don't take my word for it - try it!

Blog's Category: My Staple Food, Kid's Favorite




Intro

I make this simple oven roasted BBQ chicken for years. But it is just recently, making this easy BBQ chicken, I prefer using drumstick rather than thighs or leg quarters. Why? Because I can make these awesome lollipops out of them! They look funky and taste amazing, kids love them and, it looks like, adults love them even more.

The same kind of chicken lollipops can be made of drummets, a bottom section of whole chicken wing. In this case they will be smaller. It's a good idea to use drummets for chicken lollipops if you are planning to serve them as hors d'oeuvres. Actually, you will be surprised, how small will be your chicken lollipops made of drumstick too - they shrink a lot during cooking.

There is a couple of important steps you have to obey. Do not be tempted to make your own way. Stick to the recipe and you'll be rewarded with some delicious recipe you will be passing from generation to generation :)


What is it?

Chicken drumsticks, made in a lollipop shape, roasted in an oven, and then finished with a BBQ sauce of your choice.


Taste Description

Sticky caramelized BBQ, covering these little meaty lollipops... Juicy, naturally flavorful meat... Nice secure grip onto warm bone.. You've got the picture, right?


How to Serve

Serve right away. Keep leftovers in a fridge for up to 5 days. 

For serving, you can use fancy paper frills, if you wish, but I prefer the look and feel of bare, warm bone. These lollipop bones-handles will cool down pretty quickly and in a couple of minutes you will be able to hold it with a bare hands.

Chicken BBQ Lollipops





  • dozen of  chicken drumsticks 
  • about 1/2 bottle of you favorite Bar-B-Q sauce
  • 2 tbs of sriracha sauce, optional (do not use this hot sauce if you or kids don't like spicy food)

- Take drumstick. Using your biggest and sharpest heavy chef's knife, cut right through the bottom joint to make it flat - your drumstick should stand vertically and firmly on a baking sheet. Then, in a circular motion, cut around upper joint to separate skin and tendons from a joint. Push skin down, away from an upper joint. Cut through the middle of upper joint to remove surrounding cartilage and clean the bone (see pictures below). 

- Preheat oven to 380F. Tacking skin underneath, place chicken lollipops on a greased baking sheet or use silicon baking pads as I did.  Do not salt, pepper or season in any way your lollipops! (This is important!). Bake until drumsticks are cooked through, skin is tan, a bit bubbly and crisp. It will take about 30-40 minutes depending on a size of your chicken drumsticks.

- Pour BBQ sauce into a small bowl. Add sriracha (if using) and stir. 

- When cooked through, remove drumsticks from an oven. Please note that if you cook a lot of lollipops, most likely, you will have some juices in a bottom of pan or baking sheet. Then transfer lollipops onto a plate and discard (or reuse somewhere else) juice from a baking sheet (And this is important too!)

- In a twisting motion, dip each lollipop into BBQ sauce and place back on a baking sheet. Keeping the same temperature, finish chicken lollipops in an oven until BBQ sauce caramelizes into a sticky bubbly coating, not earlier. Remove from an oven and let it rest for about 5-10 minutes before serving.

- Done! Enjoy :)


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IN PICTURES

With a nice heavy knife, like mine, you won't have a problem cutting through a joint.

Skin and tendons, right under upper joint, are cut up, separated from a bone and pushed down.

One done, nine to go.. It's actually fun to do this. This time I delegated it to my big boy Danny (he's almost 20) - he liked to do this!



Adjust sriracha quantity, if you like it spicy and using it, according to your heat tolerance.




This time there was no any juices accumulated in a bottom of pan. Previously, I cooked lollipops for a large crowd and there were about 30 drumsticks, and a lot of juices. Do not forget to pour them out before roasting drumsticks with BBQ.

No basting, just dip-twist-shake method. Easy-peasy ...

That is important to let BBQ sauce to caramelize until it's dry and sticky.



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