Soy Sauce Chicken

I was utterly surprised by the popularity of the post on how to make "white-cut chicken" (June 23, 2013), a very basic but ever popular dish in Chinese cooking.  In the three years that the post was up, it has had 3,481 page views, almost ten times the average for this blog (364).  So I turned my thoughts to the other basic chicken dish - soy sauce chicken, done with very similar technique except with soy sauce.

The key to a good soy sauce chicken is obviously the soy sauce.  Get a good quality naturally fermented soy.  I use the 美味棧古法頭抽, available in larger Chinese supermarkets (in Toronto) but other brands of quality will work too. Thanks to my dear friend MC for introducing me to this brand and to the Rose Wine which truly enhanced the taste of this chicken.   MC's ratio of soy sauce was 3 tablespoons of premium soy, 3 tablespoons of dark soy (also get a quality dark soy) 3 tablespoons of Rose wine, 2-3 tablespoons of rock sugar.  This small amount of liquid is barely enough to cover half the chicken and will only work if you have a heavy cast iron pot like a medium sized Le Creuset pot that will hold the chicken snugly and retain heat even after the stove is off.  MC used a specially made heavy cooker but any heavy heat retaining pot should work.  I have gradually changed the recipe as I accumulated the sauce each time. Here's how I did it.

Ingredients: rose wine, premium soy, dark soy, rock sugar

Use the so-called "butter free-range chicken" available in Chinese groceries.  First time, use the basic recipe of 3 tablespoons each of the three liquids - soy, dark soy and rose wine plus 3 lumps of rock sugar.  Add lots of fresh ginger pieces and green onion.  Bring liquid to a boil in a heavy enamelled cast iron pot and quickly immerse chicken, breast side down.  Cover pot.

When the liquid boils again, turn off the heat. Cover pot.  Leave chicken in pot for 15 - 20 minutes (depending on size of chicken) then flip to the other side, bringing liquid to a boil again then turn off heat.

Because of the heat retention properties of the enamelled cast iron pot, the liquid would still be very hot even after the stove is turned off.  Leave chicken in pot for another 15 minutes.  At the end of the 15 minutes, bring liquid to a boil again and use a ladle to pour hot liquid over the parts of the chicken that were not fully immersed for a few more minutes.  Remove chicken from pot and let cool before applying sesame oil to the skin.  Then cut into serving pieces.  I like to put mine on the dish with the chicken pieces lined up.

Keeping the sauce for the next time -
After removing the chicken, bring the liquid to a boil again then let it cool.  I keep the liquid in the freezer and reuse it for the next soy sauce chicken.  Every time I add the 3 tablespoons of each of the liquid in the recipe and adjust the rock sugar as needed.  After cooking a couple of chickens, there should be enough liquid to cover at least half the chicken and there will no longer be a need to ladle hot liquid over the chicken, which makes the recipe even easier.  I sometimes add a couple of shelled hard-boiled eggs to the liquid with the chicken.  This will produce tasty soy sauce eggs without any extra effort.

New American Style Restaurant Experience

We tried a new restaurant Eden Hill (http://www.edenhillrestaurant.com/#about) last night. It got good reviews from Seattle Times, and excellent Google reviews – with one reviewer saying that it is somewhat fru-fru. It is true; but the food was totally worth it. We are considering their ten course texture chef menu coming up in a couple weeks.  

We opted for the blind chef 5-course tasting menu. The server asked us to trust the chef if we told him what we wouldn’t eat. I said rabbit (too cute to eat), and forgot to say lamb (also too cute) – more on that later. The pre-first-course (i.e. it didn’t count as one of the 5 courses) were two oysters in the half shell with champagne vinaigrette, decorated with edible petals from the local farmer’s market.

The first course was fresh tomatoes salad; the “cute” presentation included a fake egg-yolk. It looked like a yolk but was filled with tomato puree (or juice), enclosed in a skin just like a real egg yolk; and when I pierced it the inside ran out just like a real egg yolk. Since I forgot to turn my recorder on I don’t remember how it was done – maybe some sort of molecular gastronomy. In the picture the “yolk” is sitting under the shaved radish. And it was very tasty – excellently done. It came with a piece of bread to soak up all the juices.

Next was a shrimp and veggie dish. The baby potatoes were sauced with fermented cider vinegar and escolar pepper vinegar. The black olive-looking orbs were the height of fru-fru-ness – they were cucumbers compressed with olive oil and tossed with sweet vinegar. The base had wine chili oil and tarragon aioli, with grilled local shrimp, topped with a sorrel leaf for the acidity.

Then it was halibut cheek, with little “black” currents (which were red in color), fried peppers, grilled sun chokes, agar based brown-butter-anchovy-caramel sauce (I think something like that), and topped with pea sprouts and edible flowers. Very yummy halibut cheeks!

This was followed by lamb chops, which I hadn’t had in years since I swore off eating cute animals.  It came with halved grilled sweet cherries, roasted red onion, first-of-the-season baby button chanterelles, sprouts, and lovage sauce. And I remembered how I used to love lamb chops. (Of course Steve would order lamb when he was eating out without me present).

The palate cleanser was a half ball of peach jelly, that tasted like fresh peach.

The dessert was rose and wild berry ice cream, with saffron caramel, sesame seed crumbles, brown butter sponge cake, with an edible gold leaf. I have never had gold leaf but I don’t think it tasted like much. But the rest was great.

So quite an experience - and every dish was exceptional! And one of the best meals we’ve had for a long time – with all the ingredients locally sourced and artistically arranged. If we decide to go for the texture tasting menu I will certainly blog about it also.

Here are a couple pictures of the restaurant (non-food) related - it is a 16-seat restaurant, plus about a dozen bar seatings.