Slow-Cooked Mandarin Chicken

The weeks after the boil and the birthday feel like the exhale after holding your breath. September in Savannah softens — the light goes amber, the heat eases from brutal to merely aggressive, and the marsh grass turns gold in a way that makes the whole landscape look like it's been dipped in honey.

I've been thinking about the cooking demonstration I did in Monique's classroom. And about Derek's restaurant. And about Sapelo Island. And about how all of these things are connected by a thread that I'm only now starting to see: the food is not just mine. It was never just mine. It belongs to a tradition that goes back to Pearl, to Sapelo, to West Africa, to the people who carried their food knowledge across an ocean in chains and kept it alive through centuries of being told they were nothing. The food is a record. The food is proof.

I want to do something with that. I don't know what yet. Maybe more classroom visits. Maybe a cooking class, like the one I taught at the community center. Maybe something bigger that I can't see yet because grief is still sitting on my peripheral vision and blocking part of the view. But I want it. For the first time since Earl died, I want something forward. Not backward. Not the past. Something that hasn't happened yet.

Kayla noticed. She came over Tuesday and I told her I'd been thinking, and she said, "About what?" and I said, "About what comes next," and she looked at me with a face that was so relieved it almost made me cry. She said, "Granny, I've been waiting for you to say that." She said, "You're not done." She's right. I'm not done. The kitchen is lit and the stove is hot and I have thirty more years of food history to share, or twenty, or ten, or however many the Lord gives me. However many. I'll use them all.

Made chicken bog tonight — the comfort food, the one-pot meal, the thing I make when I'm thinking hard and need my hands to be busy. The rice absorbs the broth and the chicken falls off the bone and the kitchen smells like someone cares, and that someone is me, and I'm still here.

Now go on and feed somebody.

Chicken bog is what I make when my hands need something to do while my mind works through something big — and that night, after talking to Kayla, after saying out loud for the first time that I wanted something forward, I needed exactly that. I didn’t have everything for bog, but I had chicken thighs and a can of mandarins and a slow cooker that Earl bought me the winter before he got sick, and that was enough. The slow cooker does the waiting for you, which meant I could sit at the kitchen table and let the wanting-something-forward feeling settle in without burning anything. This one’s for the days when you’re figuring out what comes next.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 5–6 hours | Total Time: 5 hours 15 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1 can (11 oz) mandarin oranges in juice, drained (reserve juice)
1/3 cup low-sodium soy sauce
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons cold water
3 green onions, thinly sliced, for garnish
Cooked white or brown rice, for serving

Instructions

Arrange the chicken. Place chicken thighs in a single layer in the bottom of a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker.
Make the sauce. In a small bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, honey, rice vinegar, garlic, ginger, red pepper flakes, and the reserved mandarin orange juice. Pour evenly over the chicken.
Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 5 to 6 hours, or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours, until the chicken is very tender and pulling apart easily.
Thicken the sauce. Remove the chicken to a cutting board. Stir the cornstarch and cold water together in a small bowl until smooth, then whisk the slurry into the liquid remaining in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on HIGH for 15 to 20 minutes, until the sauce has thickened to a glaze.
Finish the dish. Return the chicken to the slow cooker, breaking it into large pieces if desired. Gently fold in the mandarin oranges and let everything warm through for 5 minutes.
Serve. Spoon over cooked rice and scatter green onions over the top.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slow-Cooked Mandarin Chicken — The Pot I Come Back To When I Need to Think