Smokey Chicken drumsticks (and herby ones too)

Over Christmas, I tried some ready-made party food chicken drum sticks at my boyfriend's house. I had never ever had chicken drumsticks before, and apart from them burning my tastebuds off with chili, I was taken aback by how tasty they were.

Ever since tasting them, I've had cravings to re-create those delicious drumsticks- the only problem was, I had no idea what they were marinated in.


After scrolling through the billions of chicken marinade recipes on the internet, I recognized a few common ingredients. One of which was paprika- smokey, smokey, smokey, chicken! There were other things too like rice vinegar, but I decided not to buy a whole cupboard load of new ingredients, and take advantage of the things I already had.

So my first marinade consisted of:

• 24g honey
• 2 tsp Smoked paprika
• freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 cloves garlic, minced

Before it was cooked, I thought this marinade tasted kind of odd, so I decided to use it only on two of the chicken drumsticks. As it turns out, this was actually the better marinade, and turned out pretty tasty on the chicken, although it could also be improved immensely.

My second marinade didn't really come through in the flavour of the cooked chicken, even though it smelt fragrant and delicious, so I wouldn't recommend it as a marinade- however it is still a well know great combination for many other foods, so don't underestimate it!

Second marinade:

• big few pinches of dried oregano and dried thyme
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• ground pepper
• salt
• olive oil

I rubbed both of these marinades in to the chicken, and baked them on a baking tray lined with non-stick foil for 40 minutes at 200C, turning them over half way through.

When I first read the total cooking time of 40 mins (on most recipes), I thought it might be a bit too long (being an inexperienced chicken cooker) but actually, taking them out after 30 minutes doesn't allow the chicken  to obtain a meaty enough texture. Also, the extra time in the oven allows the skin to get a bit crispier, although if you really want crispy chicken skin, I would recommend frying it.

Over all verdict: keep experimenting with marinades..we WILL reach CHICKEN PERFECTION soon!