Chicken legs with mustard and honey

Chicken legs with mustard and honey! Believe it or not this is the first time I cook chicken this way ever! This is the first time I cook anything this way ever! And the question of course is why. Well, I didn’t like “sweet and sour” flavors and I say “didn’t” because this  is something that has already changed. A few weeks ago I was invited to a wedding party where I tasted this dish or to be more accurate a dish I liked so much that I had to cook it myself. It was the only way to taste it again and again and again. So simple yet so delicious. This was not at all like other sweet and sour dishes I had before. All the others where so over-sweetened that it was difficult even to understand what you are eating. Just a sweet “thing”. Was it pork? Was it chicken? Was it something else? Who knows? It is amazing how bad choices in life make us miss so many beautiful things!

“Chicken with mustard” was all I could learn about the ingredients. The peppery taste of the mustard was obvious and so was the discrete sweetness. But is it honey or brown sugar that makes that sweetness? Is there lemon juice, orange juice or nothing at all? Is there onion or garlic? Many questions and no one to answer. So I had to improvise. I decided to use onion because of the sweet taste that come up when being sautéed and the beautiful brown color that gives to the sauce. Lemon juice has very intense flavor so I thought that orange juice will be more suitable for the result I had in mind. The final dilemma was honey or brown sugar? In fact there was no true dilemma for me. It would be honey! Absolutely honey!

Love at first bite!! That is the only way I can describe my feelings when I took my first bite of my “experiment”. It was not only what I expected, it was much more and I can say even better than the one I had in that party. Even better! The chicken was so tender and so tasty! The sauce was rich, thick and as sweet as it should be. The fruity orange juice and the spicy mustard enhance and complete the aromatic character of this excellent dish. Perfect!

I hope you will enjoy this recipe as much as I do!

Print Recipe

Chicken legs with mustard and honey

(8 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Serves: 2

Cooking Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

• 5 chicken legs
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• juice of 1 orange
• 3 teaspoons mustard
• 2 teaspoons honey
• salt
• pepper

Instructions

1

Dilute the mustard and the honey in a cup of water and set aside.

2

Heat the olive oil in a large pan over high heat.

3

Put the chicken legs and sauté them both sides until golden.

4

Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.

5

Add the chopped onions to the pan.

6

Sauté the onions until golden brown stirring continuously.

7

Add the chicken again and then the orange juice.

8

Lower the heat to medium.

9

Add the diluted mustard and honey.

10

Season with salt and pepper.

11

Add water so it almost covers the chicken legs.

12

Cook at medium heat for about an hour.

13

Check the food for water every now and then.

Notes

The sauce should be rich and thick.