Okay, let me just start with these disclaimers:
If you don’t like mustard, don’t make this dish.
If you don’t like chicken thighs, don’t make this dish.
Alright. I’ll proceed now!
We had a busy morning. Elizabeth went to Vacation Bible School at church and Christopher had his first workout at the high school where he will play football in the fall.
You have to understand that Bible School at our church is a really big deal. Well over a thousand kids. 5 of 6 sections of each grade level. Music and dancing. Awesome recreation time. Hilarious skits. Different dress-up days – tomorrow is Crazy Hat Day! All while the kids are learning about God and missionaries around the world. There’s a boys-versus-girls penny contest every year. Kids bring pennies – and only pennies – and the pennies are weighed each day. The weights are put up on the screens. There are cheers. There is excitement. And at the end of the week, the pennies are part of a gift that the church gives to some missions organization. An orphanage in Honduras. A church built in Guatemala. This year, the pennies are going to help children in Nepal following the devastating earthquakes they have recently suffered. Elizabeth came home today talking about the earthquakes in a shocked tone that told me she had not paid any attention to the news stories we’d watched about them. But that’s okay. Now that she’s been told and seen a video of how the people – particularly the children – have been affected, it means something personal to her. She’s ready to help in any way she can.
I foresee a trip to the bank to get pennies.
After I picked her up from the church, we went to pick up Christopher from the school. He was dripping with sweat and very grateful for the Powerade slush I’d bought him. We came home and had salami and Swiss cheese sandwiches for lunch. And then for dinner…
I made this little gem.
This chicken is delicious. Tender, juicy, tangy, and sweet. It’s just awesome!
Maple Mustard Chicken
- 3-pound bag of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, thawed
- 1 cup of Dijon mustard
- 1/2 cup of real maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons of honey
- 2 tablespoons of honey hickory barbecue sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
- 3 tablespoons of cornstach
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Use two 9X13 disposable baking pans – one inside the other. Place the chicken thighs in the pan.
In a bowl, combine everything else except the cornstarch. Whisk until combined. Pour the mixture over the chicken and stir to coat. Bake for 40 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven and place chicken on a serving plate. Pour sauce into a medium saucepan and whisk in the cornstarch. Cook over medium-high heat until thickened to the consistency of gravy. Serve the chicken with sauce ladled over it.
Well Dun #1: Use ONLY Dijon mustard. Not yellow mustard. Not whole grain mustard.
Well Duh #2: Use ONLY real, pure maple syrup. Not corn syrup. Not Aunt Jemimah’s.
Well Duh #3: You really do need to use one pan inside of the other. Stacking them keeps the high heat from burning the chicken or drying it out.
Well Duh #4: Yes, I know that using maple syrup, honey, and honey hickory barbecue sauce seems like too much sweet stuff, but trust me. It really helps to take some of the tang out of the mustard sauce. And even though they’re all sweet, they’re all different kinds of sweet.
Well Duh #5: I served the chicken over Asparagus Rice. It’s yummy!
Well Duh #6: I think the company that packaged the chicken thighs I bought must have been training a new butcher. Whoever cut the meat from the bones didn’t do so in such a way to have actual thigh-like pieces. There were little bits and big bits and bits in between. I cooked them all!
This was a clean-your-plate-and-ask-for-seconds kind of meal. Michael declared it a keeper. I can’t ask for much more than that!
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