Chicken with honey-pomegranate molasses marinade

 

So long as you've got pomegranate molasses in the house, you've got the makings of something delicious. This recipe comes together pretty quickly overall, although you do need to plan for a couple of hours marinating time.

Honey pomegranate roasted chicken thighs
Adapted from Cooking Light, Dec. 2007

Ingredients
¾ cup honey
⅓ cup finely chopped shallots
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon Sriracha sauce
6 garlic cloves, minced
8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 tablespoon water

Method
Combine honey, shallots, lemon juice and zest, Worcestershire sauce, Sriracha sauce and garlic in a large container. Add chicken and toss to coat. Marinate, covered, in the refrigerator for 2 hours, stirring at least once.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Place a sheet of parchment on a rimmed baking sheet. Remove chicken from marinade and place on parchment. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Put marinade in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Mix cornstarch and water and stir into marinade. Cook, stirring often, for a few minutes or until thickened.

Spread some marinade on chicken thighs and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, basting twice more at 10-minute intervals.

Rating: Really quite tasty, with a nice balance of sweetness and tang. Pretty minimal effort for the reward.

 

 

 

Sandwich cookies and beer

 

Happy Solstice. We figured it was a day for warm soups and cold beer, and what better night to open the bottle of Surly's Darkness?

For your beer-cookie pairing, may we suggest the Cinnamon Cookie Butter Sandwich Cookies, one of the finalists in this year's Star Tribune cookie contest? You can find that and oodles of other options at the cookie finder here. 

A friend made all five of this year's winning recipes, which is possibly a case of overachievement, or else just what's called for in a year that involves a pandemic.(For those keeping score at home, she liked the fig cookies the best.) So far I've only tried the sandwich cookie recipe, but there's still plenty of butter on hand. They don't quite stack up to the Pistachio Orange Cookies, a previous winner, or even the almond stackers I made a few years ago, but they're no slouch.

Happy baking, and may all the coming days be sweeter and brighter.