Recipe: Perfect Soy Sauce Chicken

Soy Sauce Chicken. Combine sugar, soy sauce, water, garlic, and ginger in a large stock pot; stir until sugar is dissolved. Place chicken in stock pot and bring to a boil. The chicken thighs stay juicy and tender and the flavor goes well with most side dishes.

Soy sauce chicken (See Yao Gai/Si Yau Kai / 豉油鸡) is a famous Cantonese cuisine that is easy to prepare. The flavor is exceptional, achieving by using the top quality premium soy sauce and poach at a sub boiling temperature. Soy Sauce Chicken or "See Yao Gai" is a quintessential Cantonese favorite, found hanging under heat lamps in many Chinatown restaurant windows. You can cook Soy Sauce Chicken using 11 ingredients and 6 steps. Here is how you achieve that.

Ingredients of Soy Sauce Chicken

1. It's 1.6 kg of Bone-in Chicken Thigh OR Drumsticks.
2. It's 1/2 cup of Soy Sauce.
3. Prepare 1/2 cup of Sake (Rice wine) OR Chinese Shaoxing Wine.
4. Prepare 1/2 cup of Water *add slightly more if required.
5. You need 1/4 cup of White Sugar.
6. Prepare 2 cloves of Garlic.
7. You need 1 of Spring Onion *cut to 10cm.
8. It's 1 of Dry Chilli.
9. Prepare 1 of Star Anise.
10. You need 1 of small piece Ginger *thinly sliced.
11. You need 1 of Cinnamon Stick.

You'll find it near the poached chickens, roast ducks, and roast pork. All have their merits, but a Soy Sauce Chicken done right is tough to beat. It calls for marinating cut-up chicken pieces in a mixture of soy sauce and spices, then gently boiling them until cooked through. In my easy recipe, I marinate the chicken thighs briefly.

Soy Sauce Chicken step by step

1. Combine Soy Sauce, Sake (OR Chinese Shaoxing Wine), Water and Sugar in a pot. Place Chicken pieces, skin side facing up, and add other ingredients. Cover with a lid..
2. Bring to the boil over medium heat, and reduce the heat to simmer for 30 minutes. Occasionally pour the sauce over the Chicken..
3. Carefully turn over the Chicken pieces, skin side facing down now, cover with the lid, and simmer for 30 minutes. Occasionally pour the sauce over the Chicken. Allow to rest in the sauce for 10 minutes..
4. Transfer the Chicken pieces to a plate. Drain the sauce and remove the vegetables from the sauce, but save the Ginger slices as they are very tasty, and remove the fat on the surface as much as you can. *Gravy Separator is a brilliant tool to remove unwanted fat..
5. Boil the sauce for 5 minutes or until slightly thickens..
6. Serve the Chicken with the sauce and Ginger slices, some green vegetables and freshly cooked rice..

I then bake them in the oven, basting often, until the tops are beautifully browned and the inside is tender and juicy. Turn off heat and let the chicken steeped in the soy sauce mixture for a few hours to soak in the flavor. Dish out the chicken quarters, chop into pieces and serve immediately with the dipping sauce. Cold sliced soy sauce chicken is definitely a Chinese dim sum classic. Along with crispy duck, char siu BBQ pork, and crispy pork belly, it's one of those dishes that we order most often whenever we visit a Cantonese dim sum restaurant.