Golden Chicken

Submitted by Heydarl

"Enjoy this tasty chicken hot or cold. It is great for buffets, as it looks so attractive and can be cooked a long time beforehand. From Easy Chinese cookbook by Elizabeth Chong."

 

• Ready In: 1hr 10mins
• Ingredients: 13
• Serves: 4-6

ingredients

• 1 1⁄2 kg chicken
• 1 piece gingerroot, size of small walnut
• 1 spring onion

• Simmering Sauce

• 1 cup water
• 1 cup light soy sauce
• 3 tablespoons dark soy sauce
• 1 1 tablespoon shaoxing wine or 1 tablespoon dry sherry
• 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 whole star anise
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 teaspoons brown sugar

directions

1. Wash chicken well and pat dry with paper towels.
2. Place ginger and spring onion in the cavity of the chicken.
3. Bring the sauce ingredients to the boil in a saucepan large enough to hold the chicken. Make sure honey and sugar dissolve completely.
4. Place the chicken in the saucepan with the sauce. Bring back to the boil, basting the sauce over the chicken, then reduce heat to a low simmer.
5. Simmer the chicken for 15 minutes; the sauce should be just bubbling. Turn the chicken over to cook for another 15 minutes, then return the chicken to its back again for a final 25-30 minutes of low simmering.
6. The chicken is cooked when the flesh on the drumstick has shrunk back from the bone.
7. Remove the chicken to cool to room temperatures, then chop into pieces, chinese style, for serving.
8. To serve, spoon about 3 tablespoons of the reheated sauce over the chicken and garnish attractively with fresh spring onion curls.

Reviews

[Mamas Kitchen Hope]

This was pretty good. The seasonings were very different and I really liked that it cooks on the stove top. The consistency of the chicken was a little too soft for us even though I used your great directions for timing and heat levels. It smelled wonderful when it was cooking and made the whole house smell wonderful. *Made for ZWT*

 

[kiwidutch]

I liked it. DH made this for my dinner while I was finishing work and rang me to ask if he shouldn't chop the root ginger a little that goes into the cavity, he thought it would give more flavour if he did. I agreed. He follows recipes to the letter becuase he's too apprehensive to make any creative steps on his own so I know he followed the recipe exactly. I came home to an excellent smell and DH (who eats chicken only reluctantly and who opted out in favour of pasta sauce tonight) was even tempted by the smell. I was however a bit dissapointed that more of the flavour didn't find it's way into the meat, because I found that parts of this came out rather bland. That said, the outer bits has soaked best in the simmering sauce was lovely so I'm giving this the benifit of the doubt with 3 stars and next time I will marinate the chicken overnight for what I think will be a much better result. Please see my rating system: 3 stars for a recipe that I will tweek to suit me better, but for which the basis is very good indeed. The smell proves that the flavour is there, I just need to see more of it. Thanks!

 

[Chef floWer]

I really enjoy watching Elizabeth Chong cook, so I wanted to make this recipe. I made a mistake reading the recipe and picked up 1.5 kg of chicken drumsticks instead of a whole chicken. This didn't take too much away from the recipe as this tasted really great! I change the recipe by added chopped spring onions under the skin of the chicken and added the ginger with the sauce. It was defiantly a rich golden colour and the chicken itself was moist and sticky. If I make this again I would do use salt reduced soy sauce. Thank you for posting Heydarl