Cooking with Children :: BBQ Chicken Drumsticks and Spicy Rice Recipe

There are one or two recipes I cook regularly which are family secrets that have been passed down to me by my own Mum. This recipe for barbecue sauce is one that my Mum taught me and I decided that now would be a good time to introduce it to Lara. If I'm honest then I'll say that usually I don't follow a recipe for BBQ sauce, I just sort of make it up as I go along but ensure that I have approximately the right amount of a few key ingredients and then top it up with whatever condiments I happen to have in the house. I'm sure that in its original form it came from a cookbook (and if she is reading this then I reckon that my Mum will probably tell me which).

The absolute key ingredient is a little secret of mine that I am now ready to share as part of the Heinz Secret Ingredient Challenge. Without tomato ketchup, this BBQ sauce would be nothing! Heinz Tomato Ketchup are sharing some of their favourite 'secret ingredient' recipes on their facebook page and their youtube channel.

BBQ CHICKEN DRUMSTICKS WITH SPICY RICE (Serves 4)

INGREDIENTS
For the chicken:
10-12 chicken drumsticks
2 tablespoons Heinz tomato ketchup
2 tablespoon honey or maple syrup
1 tablespoon soy sauce (we use a dark soy sauce)
2 teaspoons english mustard
1 tablespoon malt vinegar
1 tablespoon sunflower oil
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1 tablespoon plum jam (any sweet jam will do but strawberries and raspberries may taste a bit weird in a savoury dish!)

For the rice:
1 tablespoon sunflower oil
2 small cups of rice
1/2 an onion (we used a red onion for colour)
2 peppers chopped (we used several different colours)
1 small can red kidney beans
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1/2 a can of chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon Heinz tomato ketchup
3 cups of water

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade.
• Make the barbecue sauce by pouring the oil, vinegar, honey, soy sauce, ketchup and mustard into a bowl - this is great fun for littlies to do, especially with a big squeezy bottle of ketchup that goes EVERYWHERE!
• Mix the ingredients well to combine them before transferring to a small saucepan
• Heat the sauce over a low heat and stir until the vinegar smell has dispersed.
• Now add the plum jam and increase the heat a little and stir until the jam breaks down and combines with the rest of the sauce. The sauce is ready once the jam has all melted and the sauce has started to bubble. Allow it to cool enough that little fingers won't be burned by it because the next stage is to get messy!



• Lay the chicken drumsticks out in a large casserole dish and then pour over the BBQ sauce. Then sprinkle on the sesame seeds. Using your hands, make sure the sauce is rubbed in and covers all of the drumsticks really well. You could leave the drumsticks to marinate if you like... or you can just get cooking.
• Cover the drumsticks gently with a sheet of aluminium foil to stop the sauce from burning too early in the cooking process and put into the oven for 20 minutes.
• After the 20 minutes has passed, remove the foil, whack the temperature of the oven up to about 220 and cook the drumsticks for another 5-10 minutes to make the sauce turn black, sticky and yummy. Before removing from the oven, make sure that the chicken is cooked by piercing one of the drumsticks in its thickest part and making sure that the juices run clear.





• We like to serve our barbecue chicken drumsticks with spicy vegetable rice which takes about 20 minutes to make.
• Chop the onion and pepper and fry with the sunflower oil in a saucepan that has a lid until softened (you don't need the lid until later).
• Add the rice and sprinkle over the chilli powder and fry for one minute before pouring in the chopped tomatoes, kidney beans and water.
• Stir in a big dollop of ketchup and then put the lid of the pan and bring the rice up to a simmer. Once simmering, reduce the heat and leave the rice to cook, more or less undisturbed for about 10-15 minutes.
• When the rice is nearly ready it will start to stick so give it a stir and at this point add any seasoning you might want.
• Serve the chicken drumsticks on a bed of rice and hey presto, you're done!