Tea Lifestyle-Recipe: Cranberry Chicken (drumsticks recipe)

My neighbor asked me one day, Jane, do you ever make dishes? hahahaha!! I made so many breads, Banana Yogurt bread, Gingerbread, Pumpkin bread, etc, in the past few weeks and never shared any dishes with her!!! My neighbor Jill is a sweetheart.

I am not a vegetarian, but I do not eat meat as much as other people do. I remember when I was very young, we only could afford meat in holidays. And that was the least favorite time for me! I only started eating chicken more after I moved to the US.

One time I was invited to a friend's house for Christmas and his sister made such a fabuslous Cranberry chicken thigh dish that I could die for, seriouly!!! Remember, I am very picky when it turns to meat.





Benefits:
I like the fact that chicken meat provides plenty animal proteins for me. Here's the nutrition table for chicken.

The only thing to be careful if you have high cholestrol, make sure you do not eat too much of it because chicken meat does have quite a bit cholestrol. I normally eat 1 or two chicken thighs each meal.

You can also use the recipe for BBQ chicken, Roasted chicken, and cranberry drumsticks.

Tea pairing: green tea or gold tip black tea


Ingredients:
since I can not finish a whole chicken, I use chicken drumsticks for this recipe. You can use this recipe for whole chicken, just double ingredients.

5 chicken thighs (1 pack), with skin and bones

2 tbsp green tea (very strong)

2 tbsp cranberry jam

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp paprika

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp cocoa powder

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

2 tbsp sake

1 tsp ginger zest (lemon grader)



1. Thaw the chicken thighs in a bowl. Sprinkle some salt (1 tsp)  to let them thaw more quickly.
2.  Use grader to make zinger zest
3. Brew very strong green tea then mix all ingredients together to create paste like sauce.
4. Poke the drumsticks with a fork so that they can be marinated easily and put them in a plastic bag with a zipper.
5. Pour the spice mixture into the bag and coat chicken drumsticks evenly.
6. Marinate chicken drumsticks for about at least 4 hours in fridge.
7. Preheat the Oven 500F , bake for 30 minutes. Flip one time in between.

One tip-when put the marinated chicken drumsticks in oven, make sure they donot have much sauces on them. This will make their skin crispy. You can use the sauce to make another dishes, such as stir fry or dipping sauce for chicken.

 Absolutely De-Li-Cious!! Juicy and full of flavor!! you can pair it with green beans.

Or pair it with mushrooms. Slice few mushrooms. Heat the pan, spray some olive oil. Stir the mushroom for 2-3 minutes then add the spice mixture (the one to marinate the chicken drumsticks) and 1-2 oz water. Boil until the sauce get thick.


What's your favorite Christmas recipe?