Soy Sauce Chicken

Being Cantonese, I grew up eating all kinds of traditional Cantonese cuisine dishes. Yes that means I have an intensive love for lou fo tong (soups), siu laap (Cantonese-style cooked meats), tong sui (desserts) and jook (congee).

This is soy sauce chicken, a traditional Cantonese cuisine dish. If you’ve tasted Michelin-starred Hawker Chan, you can now make it at home too with these simple methods that I’ve innovated.

Ingredients
- 5 ginger slices/1 tbs minced ginger
- 2 spring onions (cut into 3 inch pieces)
- 1 kg of chicken, at room temperature (Traditionally you’d use a whole chicken but I used 4 chicken thighs, skin on)
- 2 tsp oil
- 4 star anise
- 1 1/2 cups Shaoxing wine (Chinese cooking wine or Chinese rose wine)
- 1 1/2 cups soy sauce
- 1 1/4 cups dark soy sauce
- 1 cup sugar (you can add more if you find it too salty)
- 8-10 cups water

Steps:
1. With the tallest stock pot you have, on medium heat, add the oil and ginger. Caramelise the ginger then add the spring onions.
2. Add the star anise and wine and bring to a simmer. Let the alcohol cook off a bit and then add the soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar and water. Bring it to a lazy simmer for 20 minutes.
3. Increase the heat to medium high heat and slowly submerge the chicken. If you’re using a whole chicken, let the chicken cook for 5 minutes before emptying the cavity and submerging it again, ensuring there aren’t any air pockets in the cavity.
4. Bring the liquid to a slow simmer for 35 minutes and turn off the heat, cover the pot and let the chicken rest for another 10-15 minutes.
5. Transfer the cooked chicken to chopping board and cut it up. Serve it with warm rice and enjoy!

Note : Extra liquid in the pot can be kept frozen and you can use it again! You can also add firm tofu, hard boiled eggs and shiitake mushrooms when you’re simmering the chicken.