Chile-Garlic Chicken from Everyday Food Magazine

One of my favorite magazines is Everyday Food. I like it so much I just bought a bunch of back issues on Ebay. You also know another thing I love is Chicken Thighs. So when I saw this recipe I said skip the drumsticks and just used 4 chicken thighs, so it really would only serve 2. I will include a nice idea for using the leftovers if you are dining alone like me.

Ingredients

Serves 4

* 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
* 4 chicken legs (2 1/2 pounds total), drumsticks and thighs separated
* 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
* 3/4 cup white vinegar
* 1/2 cup soy sauce
* 1/2 teaspoon red-pepper flakes
* 1/4 cup sugar

Directions
1. In a large saucepan, heat oil over medium-high. Add chicken, skin side down, and cook until skin is golden and crisp, about 5 minutes. Flip and cook 2 minutes more. Transfer chicken to a plate.
2. Discard all but 1 tablespoon fat from pan. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds. Stir in vinegar, soy sauce, red-pepper flakes, and sugar. Return chicken to pan, skin side up. Bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat to low; cook 15 minutes (liquid should be gently simmering; adjust heat if necessary). Uncover, raise heat to medium, and cook until sauce is reduced by half, 10 minutes.




Lets gather some ingredients. You will need some garlic, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, red pepper flakes, oil and some chicken pieces. I got a great deal on thighs at Costco. They are packed in individual sections with 4 thighs in each, perfect for me!

There isn't much prep at all for this dish.




I just love garlic, so I used a couple more than 4 cloves, but they were tiny!




Measure out the soy sauce and vinegar. Chop your garlic and measure your sugar. Talk about easy, we are ready to cook now!




Get some oil going in a pan.




Drop the chicken in and brown it skin side down for about 5 minutes. Flip it over and cook for 2 minutes more.




Get it out of the pan after that. You may realize that my chicken has lost its skin. Well, it stuck to the bottom of my dutch oven. I don't know if I didn't have enough oil or it was too hot or what. If anyone has some tips, I'd appreciate it!




Get your garlic in the pan and stir it around for about 30 seconds.




Stir in the rest of the ingredients and scrape all the yummy bits off the bottom of the pan.




Put the chicken back in the pot skin side up. Or in my case, the side where the skin USED to be should be up. Bring it to a boil and then cover it up. Reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for about 15 minutes.




After 15 minutes take off the lid and raise the heat to medium. Let it cook for about 10 minutes or until the liquid reduces by about half.




Plate it up with your favorite side and you are ready to eat! This chicken was moist and full of flavor. Since I had some thighs leftover, I made a great sandwich the next day.




It was just the thigh meat, some spinach and some Mozzarella cheese melted over the top in my toaster oven. So simple and so good!