Hong Kong-style soy sauce chicken is actually quite a simple dish to cook at home but most people don’t attempt it because it is not easy to braise a whole chicken. In this recipe, we simplify the process by dividing the chicken into two halves. This makes the chicken easier to handle and you won’t need such a big pot and as much braising sauce.
The trick is to blanch the skin of the chicken first so that it tightens the skin. Once the skin is cooled, then we divide the chicken into two halves. By doing it this way, the skin will still cover the whole chicken just like if you had cooked the chicken whole!
The Kikkoman braising sauce has been simplified and is a fusion of Japanese and Cantonese flavours. Kikkoman soy sauce has a special and distinctive fragrance that works very well for this recipe.
I have limited the herbs to just cinnamon and star anise. You can omit these if you don’t have them in your pantry or if you like to make a more complex braising sauce, you can add other herbs like dried tangerine peel, sand ginger, black cardamom, cloves etc. For a full list of herbs, please refer to this recipe.
The soy sauce chicken is delicious on its own but the ginger scallion sauce really brings it to another level! It is quite easy to do and you can prepare it while waiting for the chicken to cook, so I highly recommend it!
Recipe Card
Prep Time: 20 mins
Cooking Time: 30 mins
Yields: 1 x 1kg Soy Sauce Chicken
Ingredients
Spring Chicken 1 whole 1 kg
Braising Sauce
Kikkoman Soy Sauce 250ml
Sake 125ml
Mirin 125ml
Raw Sugar 200g
Water 500ml
Dashi Powder 1 Tbsp
Rose Wine 1 Tbsp
Cinnamon Stick 1
Star Anise 2
Ginger Scallion Sauce
Old ginger 6 cm
Scallions 3
Chicken powder 1 tsp
Sugar 1/2 tsp
Cooking Oil 3 Tbsp
Method
1. Blanch chicken with boiling water to tighten the skin. Cool under tap water and allow to cool further.
2. Divide the chicken into two halves
3. Add raw sugar into a pot and add 50ml water. Turn on the heat and caramelize the sugar
4. Add the rest of the ingredients for the braising sauce into pot, bring to a boil and simmer for 5 mins
5. Add the chicken, skin side down into the pot. Bring to a boil and turn down the heat to low.
6. Cover with drop lid and continue cook with low heat for 25 to 30mins.
7. Remove the chicken and allow to cool, skin side up
Making the glaze
8. Pour out braising liquid leaving 1 cup in the pot
9. Turn up the heat and reduce the liquid to a glaze
10. Brush the chicken with the glaze and set aside
Ginger Scallion Sauce
While making the ginger scallion sauce is optional, you should not miss making this. The fragrant spring onion pairs really well with the sweet savoury soy sauce chicken. After having it, you will know it is well worth the effort of chopping up the scallions and mincing the ginger.
1. Slice scallions, separating the whites and the green
2. Mince ginger, squeeze out the juice and set aside
3. Add ginger, white part of the scallions, and oil in a small pot and gently heat until small bubbles form
4. Turn off the heat and stir in the green onions and chicken stock powder
Conclusion
Hope you like this simplified method of blanching and halving the chicken before braising. This way, you don’t need a very large pot or use a lot of braising sauce to produce a smooth, tender and succulent soy sauce chicken.
If you have more people to feed, you can easily use the same braising sauce to cook another chicken, just top it with enough water to cover the chicken. Any leftover braising sauce can be kept in the fridge and used to marinate ramen eggs!
Happy Cooking!
Other recipes you could make using Kikkoman Sauces this Chinese New Year:
Click here for the Youtube playlist of the all the recipes.
Disclosure: this post is written in partnership with Kikkoman.
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