We’re gonna learn my dad’s recipe for...
Soy Sauce Chicken,
a Cantonese staple
often seen hanging from Chinatown windows,
tempting us with their dark golden skin
and the juiciest bites of chicken.
In my opinion, Soy Sauce Chicken is
one of the easiest crowdpleasers to make
both for large parties and intimate family-style meals.
Big thanks to Butcher Box for providing the chicken,
and for sponsoring this video.
More on them later,
but first my dad’s gonna teach us a few tricks
to prepare the chicken for maximal flavor.
I've chosen a healthy kind of chicken today.
It's an organic chicken.
The skin is thin, and the meat is plump.
There's not a lot of fat on the chicken.
It's a lovely chicken.
The traditional method of preparing soy sauce chicken
uses small chickens, about 2-3 lbs.
My chicken for today is just over 4 lbs.
So I'll have to soak it for longer,
and use more soy sauce.
First, wash the chicken.
First, we’ll wash the chicken.
The chicken is already very clean.
Very clean.
The most important thing with chicken,
is to wash inside the chicken breast.
The chicken breast meat
is already very clean.
Rinse it, it's very clean.
With our chicken washed, this next step is crucial
to getting the texture and color of the chicken just right.
This pot of water is already boiling.
It's a big pot.
Pour the water in.
Blanch the skin a bit.
See how the skin is already contracting?
See that?
Why do you want it to contract?
So when you soak the chicken, the skin will get crispier.
When you soak it, the color will sink in better.
Make sure the hot water is also getting into the cavity of the chicken.
Mumbles from Patreon asked,
"Do you need to cook this whole?
Can you use breasts, thighs, or wings?"
Sure, you can make it with just chicken thighs or breasts.
You soak it the same way.
You still need to pour boiling water over it
and slightly blanch it before soaking.
Even if it doesn't have chicken skin, still blanch it.
It'll rinse off some surface oiliness.
The quick blanch will get rid of some of the fat,
and it'll take on color better
because that fat isn't in the way.
If you care about getting a more consistent color
without patchy skin,
then spend more time
blanching the chicken with hot water thoroughly,
on every side and in every crevice.
He’s demonstrating here
with another chicken that’s smaller,
and using a wok which makes it a bit easier
to flip the chicken around.
The bigger the chicken,
the more time you’ll need to spend on this.
Doing this blanching now
will later help the chicken evenly take on
the iconic golden brown color from
the sauce that this dish is known for.
Soy sauce chicken or 豉油雞 (si jau gai)
is a Cantonese favorite
that is savored for its tender and flavorful meat.
It is cooked similarly to White Cut Chicken
but that dish generally showcases
the fresh and natural flavor of the chicken,
highlighted by a delicious ginger scallion sauce.
Our dish today, however, relies on
the strong flavor of the soy sauce and aromatics
seeping into the chicken as it’s cooking.
As with many other chicken dishes,
Chinese people like to serve the chicken whole including the head,
especially during celebrations like Lunar New Year,
to symbolize family, completeness, and abundance.
Of course, you can always use just part of a chicken to make this dish
and it’ll be just as amazing.
Once the chicken is blanched,
we’ll set it aside to drain and prepare our ingredients.
Next, we'll cut the ingredients.
3 pieces of star anise.
If you don't have star anise at home, you can omit it.
To crush it,
wrap it in a paper towel
so it doesn't go flying everywhere,
and smack it like this.
That's it.
Once it's crushed,
it looks like this, see?
Green onions, cut into batons.
We’ll cut 3 pieces of green onion into short segments.
Ginger, cut into slices.
The ginger is clean, so we don't have to peel it.
About 1 oz is enough.
That's ready.
Shallots.
Chop the shallots.
We’ll cut the shallots into four pieces.
All right.
Those are all the ingredients.
We have all of these ingredients listed on our blog at madewithlau.com
along with step-by-step instructions and video clips
to guide you as you make the recipe at home.
First, we'll fry the aromatics to get the flavor out.
Heat on.
Once the wok is hot,
I'll add about 2 tbsp of oil.
Once the oil is hot, or about 30 seconds,
we’ll add the ginger.
Fry the ginger first.
1 or 2 oz of ginger, it's up to you.
1 oz of ginger.
After 20 seconds, we’ll add our shallots.
Fry the shallots.
After another 20 seconds,
we’ll add the star anise.
Star anise.
After 10-15 seconds,
we’ll add the green onion.
Add the green onion batons.
Fry them.
After 15 seconds of cooking the green onion,
we’ll add the rice wine.
Next,
we'll add 3 tbsp of rice wine.
Pour it in.
After another 15-20 seconds,
we’ll add our soy sauce.
All right, next,
we'll add soy sauce.
12 oz of light soy sauce.
Because we have a large chicken.
12 oz of light soy sauce.
We'll add a bit more.
2 oz.
1 bottle is 10 oz.
"What is the best kind of soy sauce to use?"
Use whichever one you usually use.
You don't have to use a specific brand.
After cooking the soy sauce for about 30 seconds,
we’ll add hot water.
16 oz of water.
After 30 seconds, we’ll add our rock sugar.
For rock sugar,
you can use less if you don't want it as sweet.
I'm using 3 oz.
Cantonese people like it a bit sweeter.
Northern Chinese make it less sweet.
Rock sugar.
There are three types of sugar:
white sugar, brown sugar, and rock sugar.
They are all made of the same thing.
If you don’t have rock sugar,
you can also use white or brown sugar instead.
For this dish, most restaurants use rock sugar or brown sugar
for their distinctive tastes and colors.
After another 30 seconds, we’ll add our dark soy sauce.
1 tbsp.
If it's not dark enough, you can add a bit more.
If you want the traditional deeper, darker colored skin,
add more dark soy sauce,
which acts partially as food coloring.
With our smaller chicken,
we’re using 6 tbsp,
and some recipes call for much more.
Our friends at The Woks of Life use about 20 tbsp,
or 1.25 cups of dark soy sauce in their recipe
for a 4-5 lb chicken like ours today.
Roughly 20 seconds after adding the dark soy sauce,
we’ll add 3 more tbsp of rice wine.
After adding the rice wine, we’ll lower the heat to simmer the sauce.
Let it cook for 2 to 3 minutes,
let that flavor cook,
then I'll put the chicken in and start pouring it over.
Do you start on high heat?
Start on high, and then lower it.
Let's see if the sugar has dissolved.
The rock sugar has to dissolve.
We’ll continue cooking the sauce on low heat
for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Soy sauce dates back to around 2200 years ago
during the Han Dynasty in China.
Much like congee,
soy sauce was originally developed to stretch food supply
because salt used to be a very expensive commodity,
but it has since become one of the most common and important ingredients
in all of Asian cuisine.
In Cantonese, soy sauce is called 豉油 (si jau),
and today we’re using two common types:
Light soy sauce or 生抽 (saang cau)
which is what most people think of as “regular” soy sauce.
It is saltier
and is mainly used to add umami and savory flavors.
Dark soy sauce or 老抽 (lou cau)
is milder, sweeter,
and also thicker from added caramel
and a longer fermentation process.
For today’s recipe, we're using tamari,
which is interchangeable with dark soy sauce.
My dad mainly uses them to add darker color
to a dish like today’s beautiful
golden brown soy sauce chicken.
Okay.
Almost there.
Now, we'll put in the chicken.
Ladle the sauce over.
Now, we’ll ladle the sauce over the chicken,
making sure all sides are covered.
For a more consistent color,
spend more time thoroughly lathering the skin with the soy sauce.
Here’s my dad demonstrating with the smaller chicken.
Since our first chicken is bigger,
we’ll use a pot to make it easier to cover the entire chicken.
Soak it in here.
This is just a rice cooker pot.
Hold it by the legs,
bring it over here.
Put it in.
Pour the sauce over.
We’ll carefully pour the sauce into the pot.
Then bring it to the stove.
Usually, they don't need to turn on the stove at restaurants.
They just soak it in a huge tub of soy sauce.
At home, we're just using this small pot,
so we have to use a different method.
So, we'll cover it with a lid,
and cook it on the lowest heat for 15 minutes, then flip it.
We’ll cook the chicken on lowest heat
for 15 minutes on this side.
Cooking it low and slow like this
lets the sauce seep into the chicken
and results in the most tender meat.
The chicken's been soaking for 15 minutes.
Now I'm going to flip it over.
Flip it slowly to keep the skin intact.
After 15 minutes, we’ll carefully flip the chicken over
so it cooks evenly.
Set it down inside.
Now, we'll let it soak for another 15 minutes.
Cover it.
We’ll cover and let it simmer again for 15 minutes.
The reason we flip it is because of the size of our chicken.
Traditionally, chickens used for this dish are smaller, about 2-3lbs.
Most whole chickens in grocery stores in the US are about 4-5lbs.
If you are able to find a smaller chicken
at an Asian market or grocery store,
cooking time will be shorter
and no flipping will be necessary.
If you’ve been following our channel,
you’ve probably heard us talk about
buying meat from sustainable sources.
For chicken, ideally we want free range, organic chicken,
and if it’s available to you,
it should be certified by the Global Animal Partnership.
The chicken we’re using today is from ButcherBox,
and it checks all of these boxes.
Essentially, ButcherBox is a high-quality meat subscription service,
and it makes it really easy
to get sustainably sourced meat
delivered directly to your doorstep—
no more searching the grocery store for
100% grass-fed beef,
free-range organic chicken,
wild-caught seafood, and etc.
The process is really easy.
You just go to butcherbox.com,
and in a few clicks,
you can purchase one of their curated boxes of meat,
or customize the box with your own picks
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ButcherBox will freeze the meats at peak-freshness,
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You can schedule deliveries as often or as little as you want,
and you can cancel anytime.
It’s perfect if you care about the quality and
sustainability of the meat you consume,
and it's perfect if you don’t have as much access
or time to shop for groceries.
If you’re interested in trying ButcherBox,
click the link in our description
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Now, we'll flip it again.
It smells great!
After 15 minutes, we’ll flip it again
and let it simmer for 10 more minutes.
Winnie from Patreon asked,
"How do you get the flavor deeper into the chicken?"
It depends on how big the chicken is.
If you use the usual 3 lb chicken,
the chicken will easily soak up the flavor.
In a little 3 lb chicken
the meat doesn't go deep.
Even a normal one, soaking for 30 minutes should be sufficient.
the chicken will be flavorful.
All right, now the chicken has soaked for 45 minutes.
Let's see if it's cooked.
To test the doneness,
here, where it's the thickest,
give it a poke.
We’ll poke a chopstick between the thigh and the breast.
If the juice that comes out is clear and not red,
then the chicken is done.
No redness at all, so it's done.
Before we move on,
here’s a quick summary
of preparing and cooking the chicken.
First, we’re blanching the chicken with piping hot water.
For an even final color,
we need to be thorough
with blanching the whole chicken.
Then we’ll let it drain and dry.
After the sauce is created,
we’ll ladle it onto our chicken,
also being very thorough to get that consistent color.
After that, we’ll simmer the chicken in the sauce on lowest heat.
For the more common 4-5lb chicken,
we’re cooking it for a total of 40-45 minutes,
flipping at 15 minutes & 30 minutes.
For a smaller 2-3lb chicken,
we’re cooking it for only 25-30 minutes
and you shouldn’t need to flip it.
We’ll confirm that the chicken is done
with the chopstick method.
We've turned the heat off.
Take the chicken out.
Here are two bags of ice.
One bag goes underneath.
This bag will go on top.
The benefit of doing this is,
the chicken skin will contract much quicker.
This will keep the juices in the chicken.
Pull it out by the chicken wing.
Bring it over here.
Put the other bag of ice on top.
Let the chicken cool down and contract faster.
Does the ice have to be bagged?
Yes, so the ice water doesn't dilute the chicken.
Leave it like this for 10, 20 minutes or so.
Let it cool down before cutting into it.
If you cut into it now, it won't look great.
Let it cool down.
We're going to boil this soy sauce again.
We'll boil it again so that it keeps better.
Then we can keep using it, right?
Later, when the chicken's ready,
we'll thicken the sauce and pour it over the chicken.
So let's boil the chicken soy sauce.
We’ll bring the sauce back to a boil so that it keeps for longer.
It's boiling.
Heat off.
All set!
After the sauce is boiled and as we wait for the chicken to cool,
I also wanted to make a special shoutout to thank all of our
wonderful Patreon supporters for helping bring this video to life.
If you enjoy our videos and are interested in supporting us directly,
head on over to patreon.com/madewithlau to learn more!
After the chicken cools on ice for 10-20 minutes,
we’ll need a knife and cutting board for the next step.
We're ready to chop the chicken up.
Split it down the middle.
First, we’ll chop the chicken in half lengthwise.
The chicken is so tender.
Cut the middle bone here.
Split it apart.
We'll chop one side first.
Remove the chicken wing.
Then we’ll cut along the joint to separate the wing.
We’ll move on to the cutting off the thigh next.
Pull it out.
Then we’ll chop the remaining piece in half lengthwise.
Then turn it 90 degrees
and chop it into roughly 1 inch wide pieces.
Lay these down on the right side.
We’ll do the same with the other half.
Keep it lined up.
This is the chicken thigh.
Now, we’ll chop up the thigh into smaller pieces like so.
Chicken bones are not very hard.
And finally the wing.
Now, we’ll repeat the process with the other half of the chicken.
As we mentioned earlier,
a whole chicken symbolizes prosperity and perfection
so it's important to plate the dish
to show the completeness and shape of the chicken,
so each part is placed roughly where it was on the body
and, of course, include the head as well.
All right. The whole chicken is chopped up and arranged nicely!
With the chicken chopped,
we’ll create the sauce to pour over it.
We’ll add some of our existing sauce to the wok.
We'll add 2-3 ladlefuls, no need to be precise.
Heat on.
It just needs to come to a boil.
As the sauce heats up,
we’ll prepare a slurry
with 2 tbsp of cornstarch and 4 tbsp of water.
When you add slurry, make sure the heat is low.
Low heat.
Otherwise, you'll get clumps.
Keep stirring.
Feel free to add more or less slurry
based on your preference of consistency.
All right.
This is good.
The consistency is just a little thicker.
Not too thick.
We’ll also add a few drops of sesame oil.
Okay!
Now we’ll turn the heat back up to medium,
stirring frequently and when it boils, we’ll turn off the heat.
Once it's done, we'll pour the sauce over.
This is the soy sauce-based sauce.
Pour it over.
We’ll ladle the sauce onto the chicken,
making sure to cover every piece.
Now let’s see if my parents had this back in their village in China.
Hong Doy, time to eat chicken!
Did you eat Soy Sauce Chicken in your home village?
No!
We didn't have much chicken, and we didn't have much soy sauce.
More important, not much chicken.
You raised chickens?
If we raised a chicken, it would be for New Year's.
Sometimes we'd raise it so that we could sell it for money.
Friends, our Soy Sauce Chicken is complete!
I hope you all enjoy it!
Cheers!
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