Taiwanese style – Three cup chicken
25 Aug
Three cup chicken is one of my favorite Taiwanese dishes to eat! It’s a savory soy sauce based dish with basil. Some say that the dish got the name because the recipe calls for equal parts of soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice wine.
I thought I would try to prepare all the ingredients into separate bowls prior to cooking. It was a drastic change from my usual routine of throwing seasonings into the pot as I go. It took a while to do! Do you like it? Enjoy it then… I may not do it again for a long, long time.
Note that this dish requires Taiwanese basil, which looks like this:
Basil adds such an interesting flavor to this dish. Whoever created this recipe deserves a medal! I was able to use the sauces I bought earlier to make Pad See Ew, which is an added bonus.
Adapted from Christine’s Recipes
Makes 2-3 servings
Ingredients:
1.5 pounds of chicken breast
1 cup of fresh Taiwanese basil
1/2 cup of water
2 tablespoons of light soy sauce
2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons of granulated sugar
2 tablespoons of cooking rice wine
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 thumb sized amount of ginger, sliced
7 cloves of garlic, minced
1 shallot, sliced
Procedure:
1. Rinse and drain chicken, then cut into chunks. (I brined mine the night before.)
2. In a bowl, combine light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar, rice wine, sesame oil and water. Set aside.
3. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil to sauté ginger, garlic and shallots for about 5 minutes over medium heat.
4. Add in chicken chunks and continue to sauté in medium heat.
5. When the chicken turns white in color, pour in the sauce ingredients and turn the heat to high, then bring it to boil.
6. Cover with a lid, and lower heat. Simmer for about 10 minutes till tender and done.
7. When sauce begins to thicken, turn off the heat and add basil. Stir well.
