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Taiwanese Three Cup Chicken

This is a popular Taiwanese dish of chicken braised in a sweet-savoury soy sauce with lots of garlic and ginger. Great quick recipe that takes 10 minutes to cook, and it's got the sort of flav...
Prep Time 8 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Servings: 4
Calories: 272

Ingredients
  

Ingredients
  • ▢ 1 1/2 tbsp plain oil – canola , vegetable, peanut
  • ▢ 600g/1.2 lb chicken thighs , boneless, skinless, cut into 2.5cm/1″ pieces (Note 1)
  • ▢ 6 slices ginger , ~3mm / 1/8" thick (Note 2)
  • ▢ 1 1/2 tbsp finely minced garlic , about 5 – 6 cloves (yes, lots!)
  • ▢ 2 dried red chillies (barely noticeable spicy, but can omit, or sub 1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes)
  • ▢ 1 1/2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
  • ▢ 1 cup (lightly packed) Thai basil leaves , substitute regular basil leaves or 2 green onion stems cut into 5cm/2" lengths (Note 3)
Sauce:
  • ▢ 2 tbsp light soy , or all-purpose soy (Note 4)
  • ▢ 2 tsp dark soy (Note 4)
  • ▢ 2 tsp white sugar
  • ▢ 2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine or Taiwanese rice wine (mijiu) if you can find it, or chicken stock/broth (Note 5)
For serving:
  • ▢ White rice

Method
 

  1. Toast ginger and chilli 30 sec, seal chicken, adding garlic towards end. Add sauce, braise 4 - 5 min until syrupy, stir in sesame oil and basil leaves. Serve!
  2. Sauce - Mix the ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
  3. Seal chicken - Heat the oil in a non-stick pan over medium low. Add the ginger and chillies, stir for 30 seconds. Turn heat up to high, add chicken and stir until the surface is changes from pink to white, but it's still raw inside. Add the garlic and stir for another 30 seconds.
  4. Braise - Add sauce, making sure to scrape out all the sugar from the bowl. Stir, and once it starts bubbling, reduce the heat to medium high or medium so it's simmering fairly rapidly but not wildly - not too low else it will take ages to reduce, not too high else the sauce will reduce too quickly (if it does, add a splash of water). Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring to stain each piece of chicken all over with colour, until the sauce reduces and changes from watery to a thin syrup.
  5. Finish - Stir in the sesame oil, then the Thai Basil leaves until it wilts (~15 seconds). Serve over rice, making sure you use all the syrup in the pan! (It's intense, so you don't need much)

Nutrition

Calories: 272kcalCarbohydrates: 5gProtein: 26gFat: 16gSaturated Fat: 2gSodium: 783mgFiber: 0.3gSugar: 2g

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