i made soy sauce chicken!

ahhahah and it was delicious.

Unfortunately I used a blogger's recipe so i cant copy it onto our blog but i can link you.
http://www.christinesrecipes.com/2009/07/soy-sauce-chicken.html

the other unfortunate thing (esp for our fail king alvin) is its in chinese.. so i'll make a translation w/ personal updates of the recipe



Ingredients:
some chinese cooking wine (Blogger Christine uses 'siu hing', i didnt have any so i just used rice wine)
1/2 cup of light soy sauce
1/3 cup of dark soy sauce.
1 cup of water
1 piece of chinese rock sugar (i used a piece about the size of a.. golf ball.. probz smaller..i think its really up to you how much sugar you wanna put in.. how big the chicken.. how much soy sauce blah lbah
ginger (some for the chicken, some of the pan, some for the sauce)
spring onions/scallions (1 sprig for the chicken, a couple for the pan and 2 or 3 for scallion sauce)
couple cloves of garlic, smashed but not chopped
2 cloves of star anise Blogger Christine puts chinese dried citrus peel, but since i had none, i used 2 cloves of star anise, completely different aroma, but nice

warning! this recipe may be pretty easy to do, but it takes a little bit of time depending on the size of your chicken. Luckily for me its usualy just me and colin, so i got a small 2 lber from the farmer's market. Chinese people really like to use really fresh chicken for steaming, because frozen chicken loses its 'chicken' taste. I think your best bet other than going to china town to find live chickens (which is scary and i would never do) is to buy one from a farmer's market.

Prep: 10 mins

- rinse/clean chicken. You wont be needing any of the gizzards for this recipe if your chicken comes with it.
- wipe chicken dry with a paper towel
- put a few slices of ginger and a sprig of scallion into chicken cavity
- The blog says to 'wipe' the cooking wine onto the chicken... couldnt figure out/be bothered to find something to 'wipe' it with, so i just made sure the chicken was dry and the bowl was dry, then pour some wine over the chicken, and rolled the chicken around so the whole body was covered (dont soak that chicken though! AHHAH)

Prepping the pan: 10-15 mins

the blogger uses le creuset and swears by it.. well i'd love to have one too but too expensive! hhahah so i used a non stick pan. my chicken was small, so i used a 3" deep pan to cook it in.. any bigger and i'd probably HAVE to find a damn le creuset since my other pot is isnt nonstick lol.

-slice up some ginger, scallions and garlic for the pan.
- heat up pan with some oil. 'pop' pan with ginger, scallions and garlic. (chinese people call this 'bao hoong" - like.. exploding red ahahhaha - because your heating up the oil and flavoring the pan, almost all cantonese recipes call for this.)
- pour light+dark soy sauce, water, star anise into pan and bring to a boil, add rock sugar.
- when sugar has completely dissolved, turn heat down to low and add your chicken with the breast towards the pan. take a serving spoon and SERVE THAT CHICKEN SOME SAUCE. no i mean cover the chicken's body with soy sauce. be sure to put some soy sauce in the cavity too! cover the pan with lid and set your timer for 10 mins. now leave it alone.
- after then mins unlid, turn the chicken to its back side, now 'dress' the chicken again with sauce, then put the lid back on, set timer for 8 mins. leave
- unlid, turn chicken to side, dress, lid on for 13 mins, repeat for other side
- unlid, turn chicken back onto breast side, and bring soy sauce to a boil. While it is doing so, dress your chicken some more :D when sauce has come to a boil, turn heat off and quickly put the lid back on. depending on the size of your chicken, this last part will cook any bits that you've missed. My chicken was small, so i only did this for 5-10 mins and my chicken was well done. Make sure that when you cut into the chicken (ie the thigh) the juices that run are clear, not red.

scallion and ginger sauce:

- mix chopped scallions and fresh ground ginger together, add a little bit of salt for taste
- heat up some oil in a small sauce pan. when oil begins to smoke (a little) pour hot oil over scallion/ginger mix and voila. sauce. :D

Be sure to keep the soysauce left over from the chicken! :D i used it to cook some vegetables.. and i think i'll use it to make some stir fry udon today. that soy sauce is really delicious and totally reusable for another dish like fried rice etc. :D

oh doing posts first thing in the morning makes me HUNGRY :D ahahhaha