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.