Baked Apple Butter Brown Sugar Chicken

Let us just get this out of the way: I ROYALLY fucked this up. Forgive the language, but sometimes you have to call a spade a spade. Next time, I will possibly follow the original recipe or remake as I have below. However you, my loyal viewing audience, get what I actually made. Why? Something about honesty or integrity or some other BS like that. Plus the original recipe does not match my pictures.

Not a chicken wing.

Also I just want to point out, I keep my promises. I said I would revisit apple butter after the last recipe was just ok. More integrity! I am an integrity MACHINE!

Resources:
2-3 pounds chicken breasts cut into 3-4” long, 1-2” wide pieces
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (canola)
2 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 cup apple butter
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 cup sour cream
2 tablespoon Sriracha, or more (much more) to taste, divided

Method:
Preheat oven to 425°F. Line a baking dish with foil.

In a medium bowl, mix everything besides the sour cream and half the Sriracha (ie 1 tablespoon DOES get mixed in). Stab the chicken with a fork repeatedly until well punctured and the everything is well mixed.

Place chicken onto prepared baking dish and baste with remaining sauce. Place into oven and bake for 25 minutes, using tongs to turn halfway and basting with apple butter glaze on other side of wings.

To make the dipping sauce, whisk together sour cream and Sriracha to taste.

Upon removing from oven, drizzle sour cream sauce over the chicken and serve.

Commentary:
Ok so this is a Frankenstein monster here. I substituted breast meat for wings. That part was planned. But this recipe was originally a three part sauce: one to mix the chicken in, one to baste, and the sour cream drizzle at the end. Because I cannot follow basic instructions, the chicken sauce and the baste became one. You know what, I was having a good day, I did not let my screw up ruin it. Do not judge me!

This helped.

An additional screw up occurred when I decided to wash the bowl with the remaining sauce before I basted for a second time at the half mark. I am unsure of how much wine I had drank at that point, but we will blame it on the wine.

In regards to the sour cream, I kept adding Sriracha until it tasted good. If I had to guess I would say somewhere in the neighborhood of 2-3 tablespoons. One was just was not enough! Very little heat comes through in the chicken itself. This is the place you want to control the heat.

As an aside, hopefully when you copy and paste my recipes you will not get this crap.

I am unsure how to add nicotine to the recipe.

Conclusion:
FABULOUS! I ate the sauce with a spoon after I was done. Seriously, and I say that without shame.

Note the cleanliness of the spoon. I did not even stop at this point. I ate half of what you see here.

Apple Butter Barbecued Chicken

 

The wifey and I went to the pumpkin patch yesterday. It was a good time. We took a hay ride out to a field with a lot of pumpkins lying around and a corn maze. It was nice, family friendly, wholesome, yadda, yadda, yadda. Then they take you back and there is a farmer's market. That is when shit got real.

True statement.

Despite really wanting to come home with mountains of meat, cheese, peanut brittle, and fudge, I came home with a large jar of apple butter and some cider. So I immediately Googled "apple butter chicken" and found this. Aside: I have no idea why that was the first thing I thought of but it was. While I intend to revisit apple butter chicken in the near future, this was a nice start.

So much apple butter... with such strange pricing.

Resources:

4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (~1.5 lbs)

1/3 cup apple butter

2 tablespoons salsa

2 tablespoons ketchup

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/2 teaspoon salt, optional

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

2 drops Worcestershire sauce

2 drops Liquid Smoke, optional

Method:

Place chicken in a foil lined backing dish.

Combine remaining ingredients; pour over chicken. 

Bake, uncovered, at 375° for 25 minutes or until cooked through.

Commentary:

As usual,  breast halves where roided-out chicken breast halves sliced along the thickness. I try to list weight so we are all on the same page.

I only made half the recipe because I felt like it. Half of 1/3 of a cup is 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons by the way. Look, I just saved you a Google search. You are welcome.

Speaking of halving, two drops is kind of hard to pull off (especially since my liquid smoke is an open neck bottle). So I poured a bit into the smallest spoon I could readily find and dripped from the spoon.

This is about as simple as cooking gets (disregarding pre-made stuff). Mix ingredients in bowl, dump on chicken, bake, and eat (although if I have to tell you that last part, this blog might be too advanced for you).

Mix.

Dump and bake.

Conclusion:

This is good stuff, but nothing to write home about. It was not as sweet as I wanted (the salsa and ketchup really knocked down the sweetness of the apple butter), but it was enjoyable and super easy. Would make again.