Chinese New Year Recipes for Reunion Dinner 2012 Part 1 - Soy SauceChicken 䜴油雞

As promised, i will post more of our favourite recipes especially over this Chinese New Year since I am back in Hong Kong and home with the Maks. Jack (the younger Ah Mak) and I have vowed to cook up a storm this trip home and already we have planned the meals for the next few days, albeit simple dishes. We are of course working under very close supervision from mom who ensures we follow every step closely when it came to Por Por's recipes!

Menu for tonight:
- Soy Sauce Chicken
- Braised Beef Brisket with Radish
- Stir Fried giant Kailan stalk
- Yellow Cucumber Soup

First up is our favourite Soy Sauce chicken! According to mom, this works best with fresh chicken, not frozen, which up till recently is still readily available in HK, and the outcome is often more flavourful than what we could get in Singapore. However I believe that this will still work well with Sakura or Kampung chicken which i have yet to try, so if anyone does so before I do, let me know how it tasted!


Por Por's Soy Sauce Chicken 䜴油雞
Serves 4-6

Ingredients
Chicken, whole approx 1.5kg
Sugar 4-5 Tbsp
Garlic cloves, peeled 2pcs
Star Anise 1pc
Spring Onion, cut in 3 inch sections, 2 stalks
Soy Sauce 3/4 cup
Water 1/2 cup
Oil 2 Tbsp
Shaoxing Wine 3 Tbsp
Ginger, finely grated or chopped 1 Tbsp

Directions
1. Mix grated ginger in shaoxing wine. This will be used as a rub for the chicken

2. Wash and drain whole chicken, pat dry with kitchen towel. If your whole chicken comes with liver and gizzards, do the same as well.
3. Brush ginger wine (or rub with your hands, though gloves recommended unless you wanna smell of ginger) thoroughly, coating the outer shell as well as the insides and gizzards/ liver
4. Next, you basically try to simulate a rotissierie, in a wok, so have a pair of thongs or wooden spoon ready! In a hot wok, add the oil and saute garlic cloves. Carefully place chicken into the wok (thongs/ wooden spoon holding on to the insides...) and leave to pan fry on one side till golden brown. Repeat the same on all 4 sides till evenly coloured.

See how little oil it requires... enough fats on the skin!

5. Sprinkle 3 Tbsp of the soy sauce over the chicken, while rotating the chicken briefly. Then add remaining soy sauce, water, sugar, spring onion, star anise and bring to a boil.

6. Scoop some of the sauce into the inside of the chicken. Cover with lid and on medium to low heat allow to simmer for 15 mins, then turn chicken over and repeat for another 15 mins. Pierce chicken thigh to check that meat is cooked and juices are clear.

This is the meatiest part of the chicken

7. Leave chicken to cool before chopping up into pieces to serve.

Love the beautiful brown colour! Next time I will be gentler and not tear the skin!

 8. To prepare gravy, remove surface oil from the sauce used to cook chicken, bring sauce back to heat, simply add 1 tsp cornstarch to thicken slightly and pour over cut chicken pieces. (the lazy alternative is just to pop the sauce in microwave, minus the cornstarch, and voila!)

I think it doesn't look half bad :)

Got the thumbs up from the family on this dish, though really need to brush up on knife skills with chopping up the chicken!

Jack and his psycho murderer look...

Eat up!
Official Photographer - Mom
Sous Chef - Jack