I don’t remember which Chinese cookbook I got this from, but it’s easy, unusual, and delicious. Your guests won’t have tasted anything like it and you’ll get lots of compliments.
Red Cooked Chicken
Equipment
- 1 Pot to boil the chicken in
- Measuring spoons and cups
Ingredients
- 1 Whole chicken
- 4 cups Water
- 1 Teaspoon Salt
- .25 cups Sugar
- 1 tablespoon Crush Szechwan peppercorns
- 3 Whole star anise
- .25 cup Cooking sherry or rice wine
- 1 cup Soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon Asian sesame oil Not Middle Eastern
Instructions
- Rinse the chicken and pat it dry.
- Dump the water, salt, sugar, peppercorns, anise, ginger root, and wine into a pot and bring it to a boil.
- When the mixture is boiling add the soy sauce and let it simmer for 15 minutes.
- Add the chicken, turn it to coat it, and let it boil for 10 minutes. Turn it over and let it boil for another 10 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the chicken sit in the hot water (with the cover on the pot) for 20 minutes.
- Pull out the chicken, cut it into bite size pieces (I generally don't bother) and put it on a platter.
- Brush some sesame oil onto the chicken and pour some of the cooking liquid on to it as well.
Notes
Although this calls for a whole chicken, I often use a cut-up chicken. If my guests prefer white meat, I’ll just buy breasts. it’s good with any cut. The amounts here work with about four pounds of chicken.
I’m struggling to remember whether this actually cooks the chicken long enough. Something tells me that I doubled the cooking times on each side.