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Cara Cara orange & ginger chicken drumsticks


Whenever I'm writing a new recipe, it usually starts with a single ingredient or pair of ingredients. Sometimes I know right away what I want to make and sometimes I'll stay fixated on an ingredient for days with no clue what will become of it, knowing only that I need to cook with it somehow. I'll even admit to carrying ingredients around in my purse, peeking in now and then to contemplate. Yes, I may be giving Crazy Cat Lady a run for her money but the end result is usually worth the excess contemplation.

It being citrus season, I am fully absorbed in my annual love affair with everything orange. I recently picked up some Cara Cara oranges - a dark-fleshed, deeply fragrant variant of the navel orange - and it didn't take long to think up a chicken dish using the zest and juice of the Cara Caras along with freshly grated ginger root, soy sauce, honey and brown sugar.


Here's how I made it:
makes 4 servings

zest and juice of 1 Cara Cara orange (or other navel orange)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup liquid honey
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp freshly grated ginger root
1/2 cup chopped green onion
a splash of olive oil
12 chicken drumsticks, skin on
optional garnish: extra chopped green onion and Cara Cara orange slices

I started by preheating my oven to 400 degrees (F) and heating a non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat. I prepared the sauce by combining the orange zest and juice, brown sugar, honey, soy sauce, ginger and green onion in a small mixing bowl, and set it aside. I added the olive oil to my already-hot frying pan and lay the drumsticks into the pan, six at a time, cooking two to three minutes a side until lightly golden brown. I removed the drumsticks from the pan and placed them in my largest ceramic baking dish in a single layer.  The hot frying pan was removed from the heat and the sauce was poured into the pan to bubble away for 30 seconds or so just to dissolve the brown sugar, then the sauce was poured over the chicken. The dish went into the oven, uncovered, for 30-35 minutes until the chicken was fully cooked. I garnished with the extra chopped green onion and Cara Cara orange slices.


Definitely worth making again.

What's your favourite orange variety? How do you use oranges in your cooking?