Chicken Marinades

I have a favorite chicken marinade that I use almost exclusively but at the request of a reader (hi Sarah!) and in the interest of expanding my marinade horizons I did some research on various marinades and ran a taste test when I entertained some family and friends.

The marinades I made were:

1. Braised Chicken - garlic, olive oil, paprika, curry, cinnamon, cumin, salt


2. Honey Mustard Chicken - dijon mustard, honey, lemon juice, paprika, salt, red pepper flakes


3. Cornell Chicken - egg, vegetable oil, cider vinegar, salt, poultry seasoning, black pepper


4. "Unbelievable Chicken" - cider vinegar, dijon mustard, garlic, lemon, lime, brown sugar, salt, black pepper, olive oil


5. Indian milk and yogurt marinade - milk, yogurt, garam masala (coriander seeds, black peppercorns, cumin seeds, mustard seeds, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves)
   

Here are the ingredients for all five marinades. Gather your friends around and play "where's Waldo" with the ingredient list above :) There is one ingredient missing. Bragging rights if you can figure out which one isn't there (click on the picture to see it blown up).

Here is the Garum Masala all ground up and pretty. I use all these ingredients in my butter chicken recipe. All this time I had no idea I was making garum masala... I just thought I had an great butter chicken recipe with an awesome blend of spices.


The marinades all made up and placed into labelled bags. Organization was critical in this exercise so my taste testers would know which marinated chicken they were tasting.

Although I adjusted each recipe down to the amount required for one boneless, skinless chicken breast the final quantity of marinade was dramatically different for each one. Check out the few tablespoons in bag #1 vs more than 2 cups in bag #5.

The chicken was cut up and evenly distributed in each of the bags. Then I placed them in this container and put it in the refrigerator overnight. I loved how pretty the bags were all lined up in a row so I had to take this picture :)

The next day: the chicken in their pans all ready to go in the oven. I made little aluminum foil dividers so that the flavours wouldn't inter-mingle while they were cooking.

And here they are after baking in the oven.... all ready to be taste tested. I asked 5 people to give each piece either a thumbs up or thumbs down.

1. 5 out of 5 said they liked the braised chicken. It was the hands down winner.
2. 4 out of 5 liked the honey mustard chicken. The lone person who didn't like this said she doesn't like honey mustard anyways so that explains her thumbs down.
3. 2 out of 5 liked the cornell chicken. The 3 who didn't care for it REALLY didn't like it. One went so far as to say she hated it and another said she would never touch that chicken again.
4. 2 out of 5 found the "unbelievable chicken" to be okay. The other 3 didn't care for it. The overall consensus was that it was boring.
5. 0 out of 5 liked the indian spiced chicken. Two people said it wasn't too bad but the real disappointment seemed to be that for a recipe with indian spices there was very little flavour.

So the clear favorites in the experiment were recipes 1 and 2. The recipes are below if you would like to try them yourself.

Braised Chicken (the quantities here are for 3 chicken legs plus some sliced vegetables so adjust quantities as you need)
Grate or finely mince 3 garlic cloves and place in a small mixing bowl. Pour in 3 tbsp olive oil and whisk. Add 1 tsp sweet paprika powder, 1 tsp curry powder, a heaping 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/8 tsp ground cumin and 1/4 tsp salt. Whisk together and use as marinade or baste chicken and veggies before baking or roasting.

Honey-Mustard Chicken Marinade (this is for 3 chicken breasts. This makes an awesome chicken sandwich with some pepper bacon and lettuce on a kaiser roll - thank-you Pioneer Woman)
Whisk together 1/2 cup Dijon mustard with 1/2 cup honey. Add juice of 1/2 lemon, 1/2 teaspoon paprika, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Sprinkle in some crushed red pepper flakes or cayenne if you like things a little spicy.