Representative John Lewis's "Oven Baked Barbecue Chicken"
Every once in a while, a fan will send me a recipe (though more often I get suggestion of who I should spend a day eating like). These recipes are often despicable because they are from politicians and readers of this blog and followers of my videos know exactly what’s out there.
I received this recipe from Winston last year, and I’d slotted it for January hoping we’d be in the mood for a nice dish from a good man. Is that what we received? Well, at least one of those items is true, and that’s saying a lot coming from me.
Winston’s note: “Hope you enjoy this more than I did.”
We’ll see!
Chef John Lewis
Democratic Representative from Georgia
Favorite Food/Homespun Recipe: Recipe
Notable:
marching for Civil Rights in the 1960s; “good trouble”
Quotable:
“My greatest fear is that one day we may wake up and our democracy is gone.”
As always, I followed the recipe word for word, no alterations:
INGREDIENTS
2 cups ketchup
1 teaspoon mustard
1 to 2 tablespoons Tabasco or other hot sauce
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of black pepper
1 Onion, finely chopped
1 whole frying chicken, cut up
INSTRUCTIONS
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine ketchup with mustard, hot sauce, cayenne pepper, black pepper and onion. Blend well.
This seems like a ketchup-heavy mix to me, as someone who likes a little more tang in his BBQ sauce. Love a good Carolina BBQ sauce with the mustard base. As a man who does not love ketchup, this raised my eyebrows. Troubling development.
2) Put chicken parts into greased 9-by-13-inch baking pan. Spread sauce evenly over chicken.
He didn’t have to write “parts” did he? He could’ve just left it at “chicken” and I would have understood. Ah well. Chicken parts it is. After spreading the sauce and noting the color, I felt as though it were missing Worcestershire, brown sugar and garlic — BBQ classics. The color was just too damn red for BBQ sauce. But what do I know? I’ve never oven-baked chicken parts in this exact fashion.
3) Bake for 1 hour, basting chicken with pan juices halfway through cooking time.
Voila! If you want to actually watch me attempt to eat it, go to the Cookin’ with Congress Instagram or TikTok OR…YouTube! Yes, I’m on YouTube now as well for Shorts (like this) and regular videos (like Eat Like a President). If you’re thinking to yourself, “Huh, that chicken looks very similar to what I imagine the chicken looked like before it was cooked,” then you would be correct. The color has barely changed (brown sugar would have helped), staying a vibrant red. This is not BBQ sauce. Or “barbecue” for that matter. It looks closer to a bad cheeseless chicken parm. I wish that recipe had called for diced onions instead of finely chopped as well, as I feel like I didn’t go small enough (that’s partially on me, but chopped vs. diced…there’s a difference). Any other critiques from me…hmmm…oh! It made the whole house smell like my least favorite condiment.
Verdict:
Ketchup chicken. As suspected. Well, at least I can wash over this chicken and basically start over. Winston and I enjoyed this just about the same, I’d reckon.