Super Bowl 50: Your official Pride Of Detroit Super Bowl chicken recipe

Our great country nearly decimates itself every year with its craze for chicken during the Super Bowl. I feel terrible writing this on Saturday, because if I sent you to go get chicken wings now, it's liable you're not likely to find any. One day all chickens will be born without wings as part of Darwin's science, and a black market will exist to get your hands on what few wings remain.

Do you understand what I'm saying? We will be shooting each other for chicken wings. Drive-by poultry ganglands and mad scientists trying to package better Frankenstein super mutant wyngz. This is how the world ends: not with a bang, but a cluck.

But Jeremy asked me to make a recipe for the Super Bowl, and the recipe I've got is chicken. Eat your goddamn chicken.

It's no secret if you've listened to the PODcast that I'm apparently considered southern by my Pride Of Detroit brethren. It's true I was born in North Carolina, I lived in Virginia in my nascent youth and I spent seven years of my adult life hopping between the Carolinas and Georgia. However, all time in-between was spent living up in the Midwest, which means that to southerners I'm a damn yankee. Just an outsider to either group, I suppose. Whatever that doesn't matter Chris, just get to the goddamn recipe, you're probably telling us this because it's southern-based in some way.

Well you're goddamn right it is. It's sticky chicken, rich and sweet and savory. It's customary on this day of the most holy Super Bowl to make buffalo wings, but not everyone likes spicy food and for christsake, you made buffalo wings the last eight Super Bowls, Dan. Besides, sticky chicken is great and awesome and you can make buffalo wings as well, just add a little variety here. Let's make some.

Anyway, to get started, you're going to need a whole mess of bone-in chicken parts, because of course you are, and boneless is for the weak. You can use wings, but legs or thighs are a cool extra addition because this works great on dark meat too. You can also use drumettes to serve up for party platters and all that, but bear in mind that when we get to cooking they'll need a closer eye and reduced cooking times a bit to make sure they don't overcook.

Dump all your chicken into a crock or some big ol' plastic bags or something else to let them swim in the glorious sauce you're going to whip up with the following ingredients:

• 1/2 cup honey. Don't go overboard to impress people with worrying on what kind of flower the bees screwed around with. Just get some goddamn honey.
• 1/3 cup ketchup. Just plain goddamn ketchup. Use Heinz, I don't care.
• 3 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce. Yes, low sodium my man, try to live a few extra years. If you can't be bothered to read just look for bottles with green caps. Also, get Kikkoman, because it's the superior soy sauce here.
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce. Don't @ me.
• 1-2 tablespoons Tabasco sauce. Yes, Tabasco. Not Frank's, not Texas Pete, don't screw this up because you got some kind of hot sauce hot take, idiot. Tabasco is being picked here for the vinegar and heat to add. Use the lower end to keep it simple or amp up the heat. It still won't be much, but it'll add a good body. Don't go overboard.
• 1/2 tablespoon garlic powder.
• 2 teaspoons chipotle powder (optional. If you want to use this I suggest going on the lower end of Tabasco usage)

The above batch is meant for 8-10 whole pieces of chicken. Up the proportions on everything and/or add more ketchup, honey and soy sauce.

Combine all that into one wonderfully brown sauce and dump it on the chicken and throw it in the fridge for at least four to six hours, longer if you so wish. Go do something else. I'm giving this to you on Saturday for a reason.

You good now? Great, get out the chicken (save the marinade for later, don't throw it out) and go preheat the oven to 325°F, and line a baking tray with some aluminum foil. While it's heating up, get a skillet going, or a big frying pan, and a little oil.

We're going to want to cook up the chicken in the skillet/frying pan just enough to brown it a bit. It'll be a little hard to tell given the chicken is brown-ish right now in the sauce, but try to get a feel for it. Do not use too high of a heat, or you'll get the honey burning, which sucks. I suppose this pre-frying is optional, but it helps make the chicken a little crispier.

Once that's done, put all your chicken on the aluminum-lined baking sheet, dump the rest of the marinade on top, and bake for 45 minutes to an hour. Go in with a spoon and baste the marinade over top the chicken at least twice during cooking.

(Alternatively I suppose you can try grilling it, but I haven't had a proper grill since 2004. Again watch the heat to avoid burning the honey, and let me know how that goes for you.)

There. You've got some sticky chicken. Eat it and enjoy the football already.