The BF and I took a vacation to Maui back in 2009. Our mind has been there since. Besides being in complete paradise, the best part of the vacation was the Hawaiian food. Yum yum in my tum tum.
Although I never had a chance to try Huli Huli Chicken in Hawaii, I was excited nonetheless to try to make it on my own.
I'm so happy I did. First off, the ingredients are available and easy to find and second, a majority of the work is done in the crockpot. Easy peasy.
I ended up using two pounds each of party wings and drumsticks.
Fall off the bone tender these were. And they weren't even as messy as you think they'd be.
Ok. Well, I guess I should take away the "easy peasy" comment from earlier. The beginning and end of the recipe is a little involved. But it's worth it!
You can follow the recipe exactly, or you can eyeball it, which is what I did. I used less ketchup, and more brown sugar.
Huli Huli Chicken
from America's Test Kitchen
2/3 c pineapple juice
1/2 c packed brown sugar
1/2 c ketchup
1/4 c soy sauce
6 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp grated ginger
salt and pepper
cooking spray
4 lbs bone-in, skin-on chicken pieces
Simmer pineapple juice, brown sugar, ketchup, soy sauce, garlic, and ginger in saucepan until thickened and measures about 1 1/2 cups. It took a little over 10 minutes for me. Season with salt and pepper.
Coat the slow cooker with cooking spray. Transfer about 1/2 - 2/3 cups of the sauce to the slow cooker. Put aside the rest of the sauce, you'll need it later! Season the chicken with salt and pepper and add to the slow cooker and coat the chicken with evenly with the sauce in the crockpot. Cover and cook the chicken for 4-6 hours on low.
Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 450 degrees. Place a wire rack in an aluminum foil lined baking sheet and coat with cooking spray. Transfer the chicken to the baking sheet. Discard the braising liquid in the crockpot (hope you didn't use much!).
Brush the chicken with the sauce you put to the side and bake, brushing every couple of minutes with more sauce, until the chicken has a nice mahagony lacquer. I baked mine for about 30 minutes.
Serve and make your tummy happy!
I love this recipe too, and just made it last night for the second time. So I noticed that you left out the lime juice in your recipe. Was that intentional? I love limes, so I consider the lime juice an essential ingredient of the sauce.
ReplyDeleteI love limes as well. It was by accident that I didn't use any lime juice. I didn't do a good check of my ingredients before hitting the store and ended up not having any on hand. I figured with the pineapple juice I'd be able to get away without the lime. In the end, it still tasted awesome. I haven't made this recipe since so I don't know what the difference in taste would be.
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