Chinese Five Spice poultry

Five-spice powder is a mixture of five spices used in Chinese cuisine. One common recipe includes tunghing or "Chinese cinnamon" (also known as rougui, the ground bark of the cassia tree, a close relative of true cinnamon), powdered cassia buds, powdered star anise and anise seed, ginger root, and ground cloves. Another recipe for the powder consists of huajiao (Sichuan pepper), bajiao (star anise), rougui (cassia), cloves, and fennel seeds. It is used in most recipes for Cantonese roasted duck, as well as beef stew. Source: Wikipedia

I've seen several recipes requiring five spice, but never bothered to make those recipes because I didn't have five spice in my pantry. I finally decided to buy it when my friend, Amy, was raving about her friends five spice chicken recipe. We had recently bought a whole duck and I decided to try the recipe with duck instead of chicken. The aroma of the roasting duck was very good. It was my first time making a whole duck, so i wasn't quite prepared to carve it.

My carving skills are pathetic. I was hacking every knife we had in the kitchen into the duck. It was not pretty. The duck was alright, but i think because of the thick fatty skin, the flavors did not get into the meat, even though i poked the duck numerous times with a fork.

About a week later, I decided to give the recipe another shot with chicken drumsticks. Better!

Marinade:
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp five-spice
1 tbsp oil
3 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp soy sauce

1. 1 hour before cook time or the night before, mix marinade together, be sure to stir until all the sugar is dissolved.
2. Put the marinade into the ziplock, or into a baking dish and put the chicken in with it. Toss around the chicken to coat it in marinade. Put the whole dish (or ziplock bag) into the fridge for 1 hour. Don't cut corners on the time.
3. 10 minutes before you are ready to cook, preheat oven to 375 degrees
4. Bake chicken until browned and juices run clear.