I can't resist a good five pound pack of chicken drumsticks. I prefer dark meat anyway, so scooping up a pile of chicken for around five bucks is no big whoop to me (and easy on my wallet).
Drumsticks (and thighs) are the best for shoyu chicken anyway, and once cooked they make great additions to a lunch box or are yummy to munch on at midnight while standing over the sink. Because they are so versatile, I like to cook them all different ways, some fancier and more time consuming, some completely the opposite. If I'm going to cook a whole package and I am short on time, I will often do two super-easy preparations at once. Like this.
You'll need:
•five pounds of chicken drumsticks, thighs or wings
•1 bottle each of any of the following *two* sauces (I used barbecue and garlic black bean sauce):
- barbecue sauce (my preference is Noh's Hawaiian because it doesn't have that fake smoky taste)
- teriyaki sauce
- chipotle-raspberry sauce
- Jamaican jerk sauce
- oyster sauce*
- hoisin sauce
- garlic black bean sauce* (super yum!)
- chili-garlic-black bean sauce* (delicious mixed with equal parts honey and spooned over chicken)
*These are salty and very flavorful. A little goes a long way, so use sparingly.
Make a couple of shallow slashes through the meaty part of each leg or thigh (not too deep, do not cut all the way to the bone). This helps to speed cooking and allows the sauce to work down into the meat.
Place half the chicken in to a pan and slosh some of your chosen sauce onto it. You could shake it up all together in a bag, but I don't even bother. This is a very forgiving technique and great if you are in a hurry. The chicken still tastes great, even when the sauce doesn't evenly coat the chicken.
Place the rest of the chicken into another pan. Slosh some of the second sauce onto that. For the saltier sauces like the garlic-black bean, I spoon 2-3 tablespoons of of the sauce into a bowl. Then I spoon/shmear the sauce onto each chicken leg, applying sparingly. (Put the sauce into a bowl so you don't dip our raw chicken spoon back into the jar.)
Bake at 325º for 50 minutes to an hour. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. Serves four with plenty of leftovers for lunches, or 6 without leftovers.
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