I long overdue update, I hope it's worth it.

I have been on the road a lot since the beginning of the month so cooking has not been easy. I went all Sandra Lee on a pork tenderloin last week and it was great (Kerrie said I was being too hard on myself but it started with a bottle marinade). Venison pot roast graced the table last night and while the meat was delicious I didn't do anything special. Tonight on the other hand I served hoisin barbecued chicken.

The original recipe comes from a cookbook book I love called The Wine Lovers Cookbook

The recipe is designed for game hens and done on the grill, it also has a Chinese style vegetable recipe that I did use last summer when I did the grilled game hens. It was an excellent accompaniment.

It was too cold and snowy to grill and I didn't have any game hens so a nicely butterflied chicken got the treatment. The BBQ sauce is really the star. The sauce needs to cool to room temp before use so you can do this well ahead. For a whole chicken I doubled it but the orginal measurements are

1/2 cup reduce salt soy sauce (this sauce leans towards salty even with it so be careful)
1/4 cup Mirin, sweet sake or riesling ( I used a semi dry vidal I had on hand)
2 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 Tbsp fermented black beans ( I have not seen fermented black beans outside of an asian market, I found a nice versatile substitute in a black bean sauce with garlic, just reduce the garlic to one clove if you use it. It is readily available)
2 tsp sesame chili oil ( this is a staple in our house, it is the key in the spicy mayos you see in sushi, if you have regular sesame oil and some crushed red pepper and go ahead)
2 tsp fresh lime juice
2 Tbsp ground ginger
1/3 cup chopped cilantro

Add all the ingredients to a saucepan and bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 7-8 minutes.

Once it cools, use it as a marinade for whatever meat you are going to serve. For chicken or game hens it should be at least 3 hours or longer.

After you remove your meat from the marinade add the marinade to a sauce pan and bring it back to a boil, simmer for at least 3 minutes before using as a basting sauce.

If using this on the grill you want to use indirect heat and baste frequently, if you are oven roasting the you will want to keep the heat at about 375, with all the honey and sugar in the wine it will burn easily so you want to keep the temp a little lower. Baste each side frequently, every 15-20 minutes or so.

The skin will wind up this incredible dark mahogany color that will lead to a fight over tasty skin bits. I really should have taken a picture tonight.

Serve with the same wine you use in the sauce and enjoy.