Easy Dinner with Soy Sauce Chicken

Hello, there! To those who celebrated Chinese New Year, I hope all of you had great fun and had a wonderful time with loved ones.  Mine was awesome, one of the greatest in 10 years.  There's nothing like having everyone back home for the festival, only then will reunion dinners lift up to their true meanings.   The joy brought by their presence was enough to warm hearts like no other.   Priceless moments...a good start for the year.  May the Year of the Snake bloom into one with lots of joy, love and happiness for all of us! 

In the fun and festivities, this blog has definitely been neglected.   There were a lot of buzz in the kitchen no doubt, but I am going last in first out for this time while i figure and sort out those done over CNY.

We had this soy sauce chicken, a traditional chinese dish with some mee suah for dinner just a few nights ago.  Apparently I planned for it to be a light but looking at it now I am not too sure if light it was BUT we enjoyed it for sure.  Thanks to Esther for the inspiration and the recipe.  I love her fuss free recipes :)

Followed her recipe almost to a T except for some substitutions and omissions for those items that I didn't have in my kitchen.

Soy sauce chicken eaten with an egg plus some blanched chinese mustard leaves and a dollop of sambal belacan over mee suah drizzled with some leftover sauce.  Yummeh!

I am submitting this dish to Aspiring Bakers #28: Chicken Feast (February 2013) hosted by SSB of Small Small Baker.

Recipe

Source: The Fuss Free Chef

Ingredients

• 3 Chicken legs, about 800g (2 chicken legs, about 600g)
• 2 tsp oil
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 100ml good quality light soy sauce
• 1 tsp dark soy sauce
• 500ml water (+/- 650ml)
• 60g rock sugar
• 5 fat cloves of garlic
• 2 stalks spring onion, cut into 2 inch strips (oops, i forgot this!) 
• 2 inch ginger, smashed
• 2 star anise
• 1 cinnamon stick (about 1.5inch)
• 10 white peppercorns
• 1 large piece of dried orange peel (zest from 1 orange)
• 1 small liquorice stick ("ganchao") (omitted)

Steps

1. Rinse and pat dry chicken with kitchen towel.
2. Using a heavy flat based stainless steel pot (big enough to fit chicken without overlapping), heat the oils and gently fry the aromatics until fragrant.  Pour all the liquid seasonings and bring to a boil.  Turn down the fire and let the sauce simmer gently for about 10min. 
3. Add the chicken legs, make sure the sauce completely covers the chicken.  If there is not enough liquid, add more water.  Let it simmer as gently as possible for about 40min.  
4. Remove the chicken and test for doneness. Let it rest for about 15min.  
5. In the meantime, adjust the taste of the gravy to preference (I found it just right).
6. Chop the chicken to smaller pieces.  I cut each leg to 3 pieces (Not going to risk breaking up the meat or causing bone splinters with my not so good chopping skill).

Egg Preparation

1. Put the preferred number of eggs in a small pot.  Fill pot with enough water to cover eggs by 1 or 2 inches.
2. Let water in pot come to a rolling boil for 2-3 minutes.  Turn off heat and cover pot and leave eggs in hot water for 10 minutes.  
3. Drain hot water and fill pot with cold water to stop cooking process.  
4. When cooled, peel eggs.
5. Simmer the eggs in the left over sauce for 20 minutes.

Noodles Preparation

1. Rinse mee suah in cold water.
2. Blanch mee suah in boiling water to cook it.
3. Drain then drizzle some leftover sauce on mee such.
4. Serve with chicken, egg and blanched mustard leaves top with some sambal belacan.