Three cups chicken

Chinese: 三杯雞

This is a popular Taiwanese recipe. The chicken is braised with an aromatic sauce which is salty, spicy, sweet and very fragrant. Anyone who has tried Vietnamese caramel pork will for sure love this recipe. Traditionally the recipe is for one whole large chicken. The 3 cups here refer to 1 cup of sesame oil. 1 cup cooking wine and 1 cup of soy sauce. For a healthy option, you can cut down the amount of soya sauce and sesame oil. Very simple recipe and moreish. The fragrance of sesame oil and wine will fill your kitchen for hours.

Ingredients:

800g Chicken cut into pieces (any cut with or without bones, in this recipe I used 8 medium drumsticks cut into 2)

1/3 - 1/2 cup of soy sauce (qty to your taste)

1/3 - 1/2 cup sesame oil (must be toasted not cold pressed)

1 cup of chinese shaoshing or cooking wine (sherry or ginger wine is ok if chinese wine not available)

2 tbsp of sugar (qty to your taste)

1 small chunk of ginger cut into slices

5 - 6 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

1 red chilli, cut into strips

1 small handful of thai sweet basil

Method:

1. Add couple of tbsp of sesame oil in pan or wok, add garlic and ginger, stir till fragrant, then add chicken and stir fry till the pieces turned white on the outside.

2. Add remaining sesame oil, wine, soy sauce (taste before you add too much for your taste) and sugar. Stir and bring to a boil. Then simmer till the sauce is reduced and meat is cooked.

3. Stir in chilli and basil. Garnish with basil if wish.

Great with plain rice and plain stir fry chinese veg.