Chicken Lollipops

More July cooking

On her blog Just Bento, Maki has a fabulous tutorial on how to make chicken lollipops for adding to bentos. I used the other half of my batch of chicken wings to give it a try myself.

I haven't worked with whole chicken or chicken on the bone very much. The first time I attempted to handle a whole chicken was only a few months ago. Making these lollipops though really helped me see where I was cutting to get an even clean cut. There were lots of joints that needed to be cut, so there was lots of opportunity for practice.

I didn't have as much success with the actual making of the lollipop stage though. I didn't have enough excess meat to fold over, so mine ended up being more like mushrooms or umbrellas than lollipops. I liked the way they turned out though. I found that it was really easy to eat because the meat was away from the bone, rather than having to gnaw at the joint to get at the chicken.

As Maki suggested, I used her recipe for chicken karaage and had a very impressive looking and tasty addition to my bento boxes the next week.