Gochujang Chicken Drumsticks

Description

Nothing says summer like grilling some chicken drumsticks and serving them along with some amazing seasonal produce.  Instead of a traditional bbq sauce, I’ve created a Gochujang based sauce for a huge hit of flavor to take this summer favorite up a notch.  Gochujang is an absolutely delicious condiment used in Korean cooking that has sweet, spicy, and savory notes.  All of these delicious flavors combined with strong aromatics like ginger and garlic make for a truly delightful and spicy sauce. I start this sauce off by sauteing my ginger and garlic in some oil until it becomes fragrant, after that, it’s as simple as adding the remainder of the sauce ingredients. When making this sauce, I found it best to divide the sugar and add it in two separate installations; one while making the sauce and another once the sauce is divided into dipping and glazing portions. This way, you can have a higher sugar content for the glaze and a dipping sauce that is much more savory in nature.  Before the chicken even makes it to the grill, I generously season it and let the salt and spices do their magic while the chicken legs dry brine for 1 hour.  When you season your chicken and allow it to sit for a certain amount of time, the salt permeates the meat and brings you the most juicy and flavorful result.  These Gochujang Chicken Drumsticks are by no means a complicated recipe to make, they are truly made good by a few simple techniques and a little bit of time.  This is a favorite recipe of mine to serve alongside a crunchy cabbage salad or some grilled sweet corn for a true summertime treat.  Speaking of a summertime treat, did you know about that time that I dug up a seashell on the beach that looked like Don Knotts?  One of our favorite beaches we visit on a regular basis is a little off the beaten path and has an abundance of treasures that wash up from the sea.  We've seen all sorts of wonders from an octopus to a conch shell larger than my head.  But nothing beats that time we found an Olive Shell that had the face of Don Knotts on it.  The story goes like this, my kids and I went to the beach, and usually one of our first orders of business is to take a walk up and down the beach to see what kind of treasures have washed up.  On this particular day, we were finding ourselves without many options until my son came running up to me with a shell in his hand saying it looked like a man.  He gave me the shell and at first I had to adjust my eyes just right, kind of like one of those Magic Eye pictures.  It was all of the sudden clear to me what I was seeing and the face in the shell looked exactly like Don Knotts!  We resumed our day at the beach as usual but made sure to keep our special shell in a safe place so we could take it home as a keepsake.  Later that day, we went home only to find ourselves very hungry, and that’s when I made a satisfying dinner of Gochujang Chicken Drumsticks.