Skillet Honey Garlic Chicken — What I Bring When I Don’t Know What Else to Do

Ma collapsed in the produce section of the Fiesta grocery store on Tuesday afternoon. That's the word Linh used when she called me: collapsed. I was in a meeting with a client in Katy and I left mid-sentence. Drove to Memorial Hermann Southwest doing eighty on Beltway 8, running yellow lights, my hands shaking on the steering wheel in a way they haven't shaken since the last time I wanted a drink. She didn't collapse. Let me correct that. She had a dizzy spell — vertigo, the doctor said — and sat down hard on the floor next to the limes. A store employee called 911. By the time I got there, she was sitting up in an ER bed looking furious. Not scared. Furious. Mai Tran does not have time for medical emergencies. Medical emergencies are an inconvenience, like traffic or bad weather or sons who drive too fast to the hospital. "I'm fine," she said when I walked in. "I stood up too quickly." She's seventy. She did not stand up too quickly. The doctor ran tests — blood pressure was high, 160 over 95. They did an EKG, blood work, the whole panel. Heart is fine. No signs of stroke. But the blood pressure is a problem. It's been high for years, apparently, but Mai doesn't go to doctors because — like my father — she comes from a place and a generation where you don't go to the doctor until something is actively falling off. They put her on medication. Lisinopril, 10 milligrams daily. I picked up the prescription myself because if I left it to Ma she'd fill it and put it in a cabinet and forget it existed. I bought a pill organizer — the kind with days of the week on it — and set it up on her kitchen counter next to the rice cooker, which is the one spot she looks at every single day. She said, "I don't need pills. I need to eat less salt." She's not wrong about the salt. But she's also not going to eat less salt because Mai Tran's fish sauce consumption could preserve a whale, and asking her to reduce fish sauce is like asking the sun to be less bright. I'm going over every day now instead of just weekends. Not to hover — she'd kill me if she thought I was hovering — but to check in. Bring dinner. Mow the lawn. Fix whatever needs fixing. Make sure the pill organizer is being used. Linh and I had a long call that night. We haven't talked about this out loud before: Ma is getting older. She's seventy. That's not old-old. But the dizzy spells. The blood pressure. Linh, the doctor, said, "Bobby, we need to start thinking about what comes next." I said, "Next time she needs to come live with one of us." Linh said, "She'll never agree to that." I said, "I know." I didn't cook much this week. Didn't have the appetite. On Thursday I made chao ga — chicken rice porridge — and brought half of it to Ma. It's the food you make when someone is sick. She ate it and said, "You put too much ginger." I said, "I know, Ma." I didn't. The ginger was perfect. But she needed to correct something to feel like herself, and I needed to let her.

The chao ga was for her — the sick-day food, the thing I made because I didn’t know what else to do with my hands that Thursday. But the dish I’ve been bringing on the other nights, the ones where Ma is fine and furious and correcting me about ginger, is this: skillet honey garlic chicken, which she will eat without complaint and which I can have on the table in thirty-five minutes after a day of being scared. It’s not Vietnamese, not exactly, but the garlic and the soy sauce make it feel close enough to home that she doesn’t send it back. Cooking it is the one thing this week that felt steady.

Skillet Honey Garlic Chicken

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
• 1/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• Sliced green onions, for garnish
• Steamed white rice, for serving

Instructions

1. Season the chicken. Pat chicken thighs dry with paper towels and season both sides with salt and pepper.
2. Sear skin-side down. Heat olive oil in a large oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat. Place chicken skin-side down and cook undisturbed for 7–8 minutes, until the skin is deep golden brown and releases easily from the pan.
3. Flip and cook through. Flip chicken and cook the other side for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium. Transfer chicken to a plate and set aside (it will finish in the sauce).
4. Build the sauce. In the same skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add garlic and ginger and cook, stirring, for 60 seconds until fragrant. Whisk in honey, soy sauce, and rice vinegar.
5. Thicken and simmer. Stir cornstarch into the chicken broth until dissolved, then pour into the skillet. Stir to combine and bring to a gentle simmer, about 2 minutes, until the sauce thickens slightly.
6. Finish the chicken. Return chicken thighs to the skillet skin-side up. Spoon sauce over the top. Simmer over medium-low heat for 8–10 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and registers 165°F at the thickest part.
7. Rest and serve. Let chicken rest 3 minutes in the pan. Spoon sauce generously over each piece, garnish with green onions, and serve over steamed white rice.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 370 | Protein: 27g | Fat: 19g | Carbs: 21g | Fiber: 0g | Sodium: 490mg