Honey Ginger Chicken

I decided to hit Mom's old recipe books and came across this. As usual, Dear Reader, I've messed with it and come up with something just a little spicier than the original recipe.

HONEY GINGER CHICKEN

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup flour
2 teaspoons grated gingerroot
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3 pounds chicken thighs

Sauce ingredients:

1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup chili sauce (see notes below)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons grated gingerroot
1/8 teaspoon hot sauce (I used Tabasco©)

Heat your oven to 425. PAN PREP: Foil a 13x9x2 inch pan. I would suggest rolling the foil over the edges of the pan, makes it easy to pour out the fat later. [see the note on this down below]

Heat the oil and butter in the pan in the oven until it's melted. While it's melting, mix the flour, the grated gingerroot and the pepper. Coat your chicken in the flour mixture thoroughly. Let it sit a couple minutes, then coat the skin side again with the flour mixture. Place the chicken SKIN SIDE DOWN in the pan.



Bake uncovered for 30 minutes. Turn the chicken over, bake for an additional 15 minutes. The skin should look rather dry. Remove the chicken from the pan and drain the fat (see? Methods to my madness.). Return the chicken to the pan, skin side up.



Mix the sauce ingredients. Pour 1/2 of the sauce over the chicken, reserving the other 1/2 of it for the first basting.


Bake 5 minutes. Pour the remaining sauce over the chicken. Feel free to move the chicken around in the pan, since this will make sure the sauce penetrates the cut side. Bake for 5 minutes. Baste a final time, spooning the sauce from the bottom of the pan over the chicken. Bake for 5 minutes.

Serve over rice, spooning some sauce onto the top of the chicken.

Notes: As stated, I foiled my pan. I foil all my cooking pans except the baking pans (and they get parchment) because it's a cleaning thing. The original recipe had instructions to bake the chicken, drain the fat THEN foil the pan, which is just silly. "Here! Let's put foil over the remaining fats AND the fond (and it's all about the fond) and then BAKE IT AGAIN!"

You can leave out the hot sauce if you like. I like a little spice. And of course, you can do it 'to taste'.

CHILI SAUCE: I had never heard of this, thought it might be similar to enchilada sauce or something. It's not. It's a ketchup-type product that has more body and flavor than ketchup. Which means I've found a new ketchup, Dear Reader. Like I said... It's got more body and flavor, and something tells me that's what I want on my french fries when I bother to eat them. There were several brands at the store, I went with the most familiar name.

On the sauce: I mixed my sauce while the chicken was in the oven for the last 15 minutes.

On the rice: I used basmati rice, and threw about 1 teaspoon of grated gingerroot in with it.

Now, what I changed: I dropped the amount of soy from 1/3 cup to 1/4 cup. I upped the ginger all over by 1/2 a teaspoon, all measurements (I like ginger). I also added the hot sauce. Some orange zest or juice in the sauce would NOT be remiss, since orange and ginger go together really well.
Oh, and the original recipe was from The Betty Crocker Cookbook, the one from 1989? 1990?