#59 Barbecue Chicken with honey sauce

Our second recipe for the grilling season. Chicken Barbecue with honey sauce. Chicken! I am always careful with handling chicken meat, especially grilling because unlike beef and seafood, it needs to be cooked thoroughly. It was a nice warm weekday evening, we had some fresh unfrozen chicken thighs in the fridge, and a massive craving for barbecue that instructed me to fire up the grill. We searched for a barbecue sauce recipe and we found one that had great reviews but needed so many ingredients. The most that I have ever seen..Really? Too much for a barbecue sauce! But I had to give this recipe a try. We needed it. No pain, no gain, I thought. Well, we certainly gained a delicious barbecue dinner for all the effort. :) Chicken was moist, loved the sauce! The recipe below is enough to use for basting, as a marinade and  for the dipping sauce for 3-4 pounds of chicken.



BARBECUE CHICKEN with HONEY SAUCE


Ingredients:

1 cup honey
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup ketchup
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1 tablespoon seasoned salt
1 tablespoon meat tenderizer
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 cup steak sauce
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
finely chopped onions
3-4 pounds chicken


Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients. 
2. Divide into 2 parts, for basting and for dipping. 
3. Cover the one for dipping and refrigerate until ready to use.
4. Grill chicken meat and baste frequently until meat is well cooked. 

Recipe adapted from Kimberly D., contributor at www.allrecipes.com

Most etymologists believe that barbecue derives from the word barabicu found in the language of the Taino people of the Carribean and the Timicua of Florida, and entered European languages in the form barbacoa.  The word translates as "sacred fire pit." The word describes a grill for cooking meat, consisting of a wooden platform resting on sticks.  (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbecue). 

I wanted to find out the history of honey barbecue sauce but couldn't find anything except an article that wrote about how the Koreans like to add honey in their barbecue sauces. There are many barbecue sauce recipes from all over the world. I'm excited to discover new ones to add to the remaining 306 dishes that we will prepare. It was also great learning a lot about honey- it's production, history and properties. A Mesolithic rock painting found in Valencia, Spain is an evidence that shows ancient honey collection atleast 8,000 years ago. Very interesting facts we read about honey that I never bothered to learn all this time, even though honey is added to my coffee every morning. Now we know more. We learn something new every day and we love it.