Basically, the whole chicken is braised in soy sauce-flavored broth with rich flavor and attractive skin color. Cut the chicken into small pieces and pour it with shiny sauce, which can appear at holiday parties or in a bowl of humble rice or noodles.
This recipe uses chicken leg meat (except chicken breast) to replace the whole chicken, which makes the cooking process easier and less labor intensive. To cook the whole chicken in the traditional way, you need to apply a layer of cooking liquid every few minutes to ensure the uniform taste and color of the chicken skin. Because the cut chicken pieces can be easily soaked in the broth and turned over when necessary, it requires much less skill and attention when preparing. This is definitely a shortcut to a classic dish, but I promise the taste is very satisfactory!
Chicken legs or other delicious pieces of meat
Any piece of chicken will suit this recipe. That is to say, thighs (which I took before), wings, chicken legs, legs or quarter legs. Personally, I don't recommend chicken breast, because it is a little dry and doesn't taste so fragrant.
The amount of ingredients in my diet is about 6 chicken thighs (with bones) 1 kg. In the next cooking step, I will discuss the different cooking time of various pieces.
Light soy sauce and soy sauce
Obviously, soy sauce is an essential ingredient in this dish. It adds aroma, delicious taste and appetizing brown to chicken. Besides raw, I like to add a little soy sauce. This sauce provides a faint caramel flavor and performs well in browned food. It is good to use the combination of these two types, but if you can't use soy sauce, please feel free to skip.
Yellow rice wine and sugar
Traditional sauce chicken formula needs to use rose wine and rock sugar. Rose wine is a kind of rose-flavored sorghum wine, which is usually used in Cantonese cuisine. In my menu, Shaoxing rice wine and brown sugar are used instead, because they are easier to use and have little difference in taste (if you want this dish to be alcohol-free, you can omit the wine).
perfume
Like many other dishes, delicious sauced chicken also benefits from onions, ginger and some spices. In addition to the star anise and bay leaves listed in the menu, if you have other spices on hand, please don't hesitate, such as cinnamon, clove, tsaoko and so on.
Cooking chicken with soy sauce is very simple, especially when you cook chicken pieces instead of whole chicken. It doesn't involve any advanced cooking skills, so if you are new to cooking, this is a good start. Now let me introduce each step in detail.
Step 1: Prepare the stew.
Choose a pot big enough to put the chicken pieces in a single layer, but not so big as to require a lot of stew. The first step is to stir-fry spices with a little oil. Turn on a small fire and let its fragrance be fully released without burning too much.
Once you smell the fragrance, you can see that the onion and ginger turn light brown, and pour in soy sauce, soy sauce, rice wine, sugar and water. Then set the fire on fire.
Step 2: stew the chicken with slow fire.
Now gently slide into the chicken leg, with the chicken skin facing down. At this point, it may be necessary to adjust the water quantity. The liquid should cover at least two-thirds of the chicken. Once it is boiled, turn down the fire and turn it to a slow fire. Cover and cook for 35 minutes. Then turn your thighs over and cook for 10 minutes. It's over!
The same method can be applied to other chicken, but you need to adjust the cooking time accordingly. Here is a general guide: 25 minutes of wings; Drum stick for 35 minutes; Legs or legs need 45-50 minutes.
If you are not sure, you can poke the thickest part with chopsticks to test. It should be possible to pass without much resistance. A kitchen thermometer will also help. The internal temperature of the thickest part shall not be lower than 74 c/165 f.