Recipe Review SOY SAUCE CHICKEN from A Taste of Asia p.47

[cecilia]

Ni hao, forum friends. 

This is a great recipe to try, with a very different technique.  The chicken is cooked whole in the Thermomix bowl.  The seasonings and liquids go in first, then you carefully manoevre the chook onto the blades, legs down (having already removed parson's nose and excess fat) and stuff it lightly from the neck opening.  As it cooks, it just chugs around for 30 minutes, then you rest it in the bowl still sitting in the stock for another 30.  A bit of the chook pops up and plugs the hole in the lid as its cooing, but that's OK - you just cover that with a cup or bowl and it all cooks anyway.

The aroma is divine, with Chinese wine, star anise and cinnamon adding to the more predictable frangrances of soy sauce, ginger and garlic.

It's a very simple and easy way to prepare a chicken, once you get over the fear of fitting the chicken in and getting the lid shut.  The book says to select a 1-1.2kg chicken but the smallest I could get was 1.7kg and it was fine.  The meat off one wing melted into the stock but as no one had pre-ordered that particular wing, it didn't cause as issue.

Delicious taste.  Serve with Brown Rice Salad from EDC.  You can garnish with hard-boiled eggs cooked in the remaining stock in simmering basket, but I wanted to keep the stock for another day.

This is one of the more accessible Asian Cookbook recipes, in my opinion.  I managed to find almost all the items needed at the supermarket.  I didn't have soy and dark soy sauces, so just upped the amount of soy.

Congratulations to the recipe developer on the clarity of the instructions.  Very helpful.

I also want to thank the local TMX team members for programming this into cooking class, this year.  It was an intriguing dish to see demonstrated, but even more fun to cook and serve yourself.  5/5 

[goldfish]

Cecilia - thank you for a very comprehensive review! Thanks to you, this is now on my "to do" list!!  Sounds a cracking good cooking class! Wish I'd been there!  What else did you have there?

[cecilia]

You're welcome, goldfish.  It was a basic cc, but leading up to the Asian cookbook giveaway for Varoma hosts in March, which is why we got that little extra.  I'm on a mission to try a few more from this book, but will need to fetch specialist ingredients first.  Hope you enjoy your SSC when you try it.  

[Halex]

Goldfish, this is so easy & so yum. We have this quite often.

I keep the stock for the next batch.

Tip,if using the stock again  heat the stock in microwave first before putting in TM.

Cooks perfectly.

H

[paperfreak]

I tried this for the first time last night, after seeing it demoed at the TMX  biggest morning tea in Perth. It is such a nice tasting recipe. And now the stock is in the fridge for next time. I used a 1.22kg chicken which worked fine, but I think next time, I will purposely look for a shorted fatter one, to make sure there are some left overs!

I didn't have any dark soy sauce (not sure what it was) so I used half kecap manis and half tamari.

I also have just acquired my second bowl, after Junes promo and it was awesome to use with this recipe. While the chicken was resting in the stock, I could cook rice and vegies in the other tmx bowl.

[cecilia]

Great to hear from you again, paperfreak.  So glad you reported your experience with the ss chicken.  Isn't it great having the second bowl? 

[misteri82]

I made this one last week, and it was yum! I only had a 1.5kg chicken which was a bit too long to fit into the bowl, but my husband squished it down a bit for me and all was well. I upped the cooking time from 30 to 40 minutes due to the larger bird, but it probably didn't need so long. The chicken was really soft, juicy and flavoursome! I served it with rice from the rice cooker and veggies done in the microwave (I need that second bowl!), and lots of the stock as a sauce.

I wasn't sure how long the stock would last (thinking back I could have frozen it), so I did the eggs step, and while the soy colour wasn't as deep as I'd like, they tasted fantastic.

Very easy recipe, good flavour, and no weird I'll-never-use-that-again ingredients

[cookie1]

Thanks. I haven't made this. You certainly make it sound delicious. I will put it on my ever growing 'to do' list.

[judydawn]

I made this years ago in a big saucepan but haven't tried this version.  Will have to do it also Cookie.

I wasn't sure how long the master stock would last when I did it and as I'm not one to cook the same meal very often, I ended up throwing it out but did feel it was such a waste.  Today I googled to see how long this stock would last and how best to keep it.  I came up with this.  Perhaps our Asian members can add more information eg can it be kept in the fridge, does it have to be frozen, once thawed and reused, is it OK to freeze it again?

"Master sauce" - the phrase conjures up images of a chef huddled over the kitchen stove, experimenting with endless combinations of spices and seasonings, in an effort to come up with the perfect blend.

Actually, master sauce is the term used for the soy-sauce based sauce used to make Chinese Soy Sauce Chicken. Braising food in soy sauce (also called "red-cooking") is a cooking technique found in Shanghai and the surrounding provinces in Eastern China. Many families have their own special master sauce, handed down through the generations, the recipe as carefully guarded as the precise combination of spices that season the batter in Kentucky Fried Chicken. For this reason Master sauce is also called "Thousand-year Sauce."

What ingredients typically make-up a master sauce?  star anise, pungent Szechuan peppercorn, and sweet rock sugar (granulated or brown sugar can be substituted) are a few of the seasonings that are commonly added to the soy sauce base. Chicken cooked in this manner is very moist and tender, practically falling off the bone. A small amount of the braising liquid can be reheated and served as a sauce over the cooked chicken if desired. The remainder can be frozen and re-used several times; just add more soy sauce and/or spices as needed. Over time, the sauce becomes even richer, with a fuller flavour."

[misteri82]

Thanks for that information, very interesting... but also kind of gross. Next time I'll freeze the remaining stock but I don't think I'll still be using it 20 years from now!